


What Can I Do But Try (Without You)

by RobinPlaysTrumpet15



Series: Stucky + Kids Omegaverse [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha Natasha Romanov, Alpha Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beta Bruce Banner, Beta Pepper Potts, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mating, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Omega Clint Barton, Omega Steve Rogers, Omega Verse, Peanut allergy, Pregnancy, things are different during the Winter Solder timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 17:46:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 32,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7448296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinPlaysTrumpet15/pseuds/RobinPlaysTrumpet15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After living for a few weeks in the 21st century, Steve finds out he is pregnant with Bucky's baby, and has been since just before the mission that took his mate from him. He raises his child as best he can, believing that his baby boy will never know his father. That is, until Bucky comes back as the Winter Soldier, drawn to Steve's scent and the little boy that looks like him... Steve, Bucky, and Jamie struggle through the ups and downs of conflict and heartache before they can finally become the family they've wanted to be for so long.<br/>Omegaverse AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Do I Want To Do?

**Author's Note:**

> Tags will be added as I go

Steve had felt alone since Bucky had fallen from the train. He felt alone while he made the decision to put the plane in the water. He felt alone when he found himself in the 21st century. He even felt alone surrounded by the Avengers during the whole thing with Loki.

But Steve had never felt as alone as he did when he was told he was pregnant. Bruce had said “Don’t panic.” as if that would stave off any panic attack that Steve may have had. And then he had said those words. Those magical words that so many other omegas wait years to hear. The words that, once upon a time, would have brought him to tears, filled him with joy.

But now… his mate long dead… Steve just feels alone.

He’s going to have a baby. His baby. Bucky’s baby.

It could only have been Bucky’s. Not only had Steve never once shared a heat with anyone but his mate, but he could even pin down the exact time it had happened. It was two days before the mission that had taken his mate from him. Steve’s suppressants had worn off during their latest mission, his heat in full effect by the time they had made it back to base. It was the first unsuppressed heat Steve had experienced since he and Bucky were still living day by day in their tiny little, drafty apartment. Back then, there had been no worry about Steve getting pregnant. The doctor had confirmed that Steve wasn’t strong enough to carry a baby. At least not a healthy one all the way to term. And no matter how many times they tried, Steve never got pregnant.

And there was no evidence to suggest that this time would be any different. Dr. Erskine had said that there was a possibility the serum would increase his chances of pregnancy since he would be stronger, but he admitted the opposite could happen as well. Steve could have been sterile after that procedure.

But they had no way of knowing. Steve had heats regularly. He was put on what were basically super suppressants because he regular ones were no longer strong enough to hold up against his metabolism. And the question of pregnancy had never been answered.

And after his heat, they had gone on that mission. Bucky was lost, and Steve was alone without his alpha. Not a week later, Steve found himself piloting a plane, deciding that he would put it in the water. At least he would see Bucky again, right? Nothing bad about that.

But here he was, sitting in the med bay of the helicarrier. Bruce stood beside him, all the other doctors having decided that he would be the best person to drop that bomb on the captain.

“What am I going to do?” Steve mumbled, letting his head fall into his hands. Bruce dropped his whole doctor side momentarily to sit beside his friend.

“What do you want to do?”

Steve laughed bitterly at that. What did he want to do? He wanted to go back to the 40s when things were a lot simpler than this. He would still have Bucky with him. He would be able to sit in a doctor’s office with his mate, his alpha, and see the look on the brunette’s face. They would think about baby names and get the spare room made up for their little boy or girl. He would spend a lot more time than usual with Mrs. Barnes, getting helpful tips and advice while she insisted on knitting enough blankets to keep the entire army warm for the winter. But through all of these things, there was one thing he wanted more than anything else.

He wanted Bucky.


	2. Tell Me More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers are told that Steve is pregnant

“So let me get this straight. Steve Rogers, Captain America, perfect alpha example of the United States of America, is an omega?” Tony asked incredulously. The Avengers sat around the table in their main debriefing room, Fury and Bruce standing before them.

“It would appear so.” Fury confirmed.

“How can that be?! There is not a single thing about him that says “I’m omega”. No.” Tony fought back. Bruce reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. This was the exact reason that he had all but forbidden Steve from joining his team for this. Bruce wanted him nowhere near Tony when the man found out about Steve’s true biology.

“In all fairness, people have been covering it for years. The second he was let into the army to become a super soldier, SHIELD was dousing him in scent blockers and suppressants strong enough to send the rest of us to the hospital.” Bruce said. He kept his tone low and unchallenging. Although he had to admit, the rest of the team seemed to be taking this just fine. It was just Tony that was causing a problem.

“Alright, well, besides that, he’s pregnant? Who the hell did that?” Clint spoke up. Besides Steve, Clint was the only omega on the team, Natasha and Tony being alphas, Bruce a beta, and Thor having a different biology altogether. (Though he was still the equivalent of an alpha.)

“That’s not for me to tell you. If he wishes to share who the other parent of his child is, he will. But I am not at liberty to address that at the present time.” Bruce let himself drop back into his doctor persona. Maybe it would make the others lay off for a moment so that he could either sit down or go back and join Steve in the infirmary. The other doctors had wanted to keep him there for a while on account of how distressed he had been after Bruce told him.

He had been pacing nervously in his room while a couple of beta nurses attempted to keep him calm when Bruce had left him.

“How far along is he?” Natasha spoke up for the first time since the meeting room doors had shut.

“About six weeks.”

“Steve hasn’t even been awake for six weeks…” Clint mused.

“He was pregnant in the ice?!” Tony exclaimed. “Wouldn’t that have hurt him or the baby?”  
“Not as far as we can tell.” Bruce responded. Tony suddenly seemed a lot more interested in the well being of his teammate instead of the lie they had all been forced to believe.

There was a frantic knock on the door before it was pushed open. A honey blonde nurse in glasses poked her head inside. She seemed out of breath.

“Doctor Banner, Director Fury, Captain Rogers needs you down in medical.” She huffed out. It was as if she had run there.

“What’s going on?” Fury demanded.

“We think he’s losing the baby.”

Bruce felt himself pale, hesitating just a split second before he was rushing out of the room with Fury at his heels. That was a drastic change from just 45 minutes ago, and Bruce couldn’t think of a single reason for it.

“What happened?” Bruce was frantic for any information that the nurse leading them could give.

“He seemed upset, though his vitals proved normal, and suddenly they weren’t. His temperature spiked, and his abdomen started contracting. If we don’t act now, he’s going to lose the baby.”

Bruce ran faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! I am always up for constructive criticism :)


	3. Let It Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce calms Steve, and the Avengers confront their own thoughts and feelings after hearing Steve spill his hopes and fears in front of them by accident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was longer than the previous ones, so I feel like that's on the right track here, lol

Steve lay silent in the bed of his med bay room. He and the baby were finally safe, Steve’s vitals back to normal. When Bruce had come into the room, his temperature had been 102, and he seemed as though he was going into labor. At six weeks, there was no way it could possibly happen or that the baby would live. It would have ended in a miscarriage if it hadn’t been for Bruce’s quick thinking.

Steve had hardly been conscious by the time Bruce and Fury arrived. As far as the medical team went, there was nothing they could do to help Steve save his baby. So Bruce sat down next to Steve, took the blonde’s hand, and talked to him about Bucky. Asked him what Bucky’s face looked like, his eye color, the way his hair would be an absolute mess in the morning. Steve told him all that and more. He told him about how much Bucky had wanted kids, how great of a father Steve had always thought the alpha would make. Steve confided half lucidly how mad at himself he had been for years about never being able to give Bucky the family he had wanted so bad. Steve cried and allowed Bruce to sit there and hold his hand, reassuring him when it was necessary. Steve talked about how Bucky had always wanted boys, but to have one little girl was his dream, and how Bucky had been adamant about naming her Sarah. The blonde told the doctor about the one time he and Bucky had gotten pregnant in the early 40s, and how they had lost their baby a month into the second trimester.

Bruce would realize later that he had cried just as hard as Steve had.

But as Steve calmed, his heart rate slowed. His temperature dropped back to normal as the stress left his body slowly, a sedative working its way into his system. The contractions stopped slowly over a period of an hour, leaving Steve’s womb quiet. Once Steve was down for the count, the sedative taking full effect, Bruce had Jarvis running tests, checking on the baby. Luckily, Steve’s little one, which at this point still looked a tiny little alien about the size of a lentil, was fine. A little shaken up and weakened, but still healthy.

Bruce allowed himself a sigh of relief, more tears coming after a moment.

When he had finally composed himself, he left the room, finding the rest of the Avengers standing outside the observation window to the room. They had seen and heard everything. Now they knew the baby was Bucky’s, Steve’s fears about pregnancy and being a father, and everything inbetween. Tony was silent, distant. He refused to answer anything anyone asked for the rest of the day. Bruce thought that perhaps that was for the best. The brunette had a way of messing things up without really meaning to.

“All of you realize that what Steve said in there was purely confidential and that he never meant for any of you to hear it, correct?” Fury reminded them. The four nodded dutifully. Natasha turned back to the window, watching the expressionless features of Steve’s sleeping face. She herself seemed shaken by this turn of events.

It took all of 20 seconds for Tony to leave the area, shutting himself away somewhere on the helicarrier. Bruce half expected the man to take him armor and fly home.

But half an hour later, the doctor found Tony sitting by himself in an empty lab. He was sitting by himself in a corner, his knees curled up to his chest, hugging them tightly. He didn’t even acknowledge the other scientist in the room. Not even when Banner placed himself just in arms reach of the shorter alpha. Bruce tried not to dwell on how the whole room smelled of depressed alpha.

“Pepper thought she was pregnant once…” Tony whispered, his eyes staring at the wall on the other side of the room.  
Bruce looked down at his hands quietly.

“When the doctor said she wasn’t… Pepper was devastated. I’ve never seen her as upset as she was after that…” Tony continued. Bruce chanced a glance up at the alpha. Pepper was a beta, and it was common knowledge that betas were only at most half as fertile as omegas and alphas. More often than not, it was less than that. Only about 30% of the world was made up of betas. Statistically, half of those betas would get pregnant, but only a fraction of those pregnancies made it to term. “We knew it was a long shot…”

“It’s still possible…” Bruce said back. “Look at Steve. Against all odds, he’s here at all. Any one else would have died. And here he is, pregnant with a healthy little baby, six weeks along.”

Tony didn’t respond.

“You and Pepper could still have a child on day…”

Tony looked over at his friend finally. He wore a slight smile, just there wasn’t much warmth in it. It was just the minute upturn of the corner of his mouth. “Do you really believe that?”

“I believe it is possible.”

Tony scoffed. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Pepper says she’s happy the way we are… and it’s not like I would make a great dad anyway. Look at the example I had…”

“No one said you had to learn from your own father, Tony.”

“I just… Steve will need help in this…” Tony whispered, looking back down at his knees. Bruce looked at his hands again.

“We’ll learn with him, Tony…” Bruce said. He didn’t know much about how to be a good father either. And Steve is scared of it. As far as he knew, none of them knew how to be parents… 

*

“Clint, you know Steve is going to need you during this, right?” Natasha said to the omega beside her as they stood outside the observation window. Clint didn’t turn to look at the redhead, leaning his back against the wall beside the window tiredly.

“Nat, you know that I can’t do that. No one but you and Fury know about Laura and the kids and I would prefer we keep it that way.” Clint mumbled. Of course he knew that at this point in time, as the only parent out of any of the other Avengers, that what he could offer the other omega would be helpful beyond anything.

“Clint-”

“Nat,” Clint pushed off the wall to face the woman. “I cannot compromise the safety of my family.”

“I’m not asking you to, Clint.” Nat countered. “I’m asking you to help him. He needs it.” She stared Clint right in the eye, her serious mask breaking to show how hurt she was by the whole situation. What Steve had let out to Bruce had struck a chord in the alpha, Clint could tell.

“I know he does, Nat. And I am going to do everything in my power to keep out captain and his baby safe, but if that intrudes upon the safety and well being of my mate and children, then that’s where I draw the line.” Clint sighed. He had never wanted it to seem like he didn’t want to help Steve. (Poor guy needs all the help he can get.) But his family came first.

“Laura may think differently.” Nat reminded him.

“When we go home, I’ll talk to her about it…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you have liked what you've read. Let me know what you think and if you see anything that needs to be fixed. Thank you!


	4. Finding Out (More) About You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve goes to his doctor at week 18 with Clint to learn the sex of his baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are getting longer and longer... I hope that's a good thing

Steve secretly hoped he was going to have a little girl. Bucky wanted a little girl, and he wanted to name her Sarah. And Steve wanted to give his mate that, even if Bucky would never meet their child. He would make sure that his child knew who their dad was.

At 17 weeks pregnant, Steve was scared. The last time he was in this position, Steve lost the baby. He hadn’t been strong enough, and not only had his unborn child payed for it, so had Bucky. Steve had cried then, locking himself in their bedroom while Bucky stood on the other side of the door, pleading for Steve to let him in.

Three days. It took Bucky three days to get Steve to let him in. In that time, Steve had only left the bedroom to shower and eat. There wasn’t much that Bucky could do during the day while he was at work. So in the evenings, he sat on the floor outside the bedroom, leaning against the door. He would call to Steve, attempting to get the small omega to open up and let him in. Sometimes, when Bucky got tired of talking, he would just sing. He knew all the songs that his mother and Steve’s mother would sing when they were kids, and you can bet that he memorized all of them. He would sing them quietly, sure that Steve could hear him. One evening, after a particularly hard day for the two of them, Steve had opened the door with no warning, causing Bucky to go sprawling onto the floor.

“There’s my pretty boy.” Bucky had greeted with a lopsided smile. Steve had let himself smile a tiny, sad little smile before crawling back into bed. Bucky picked himself up and followed his mate over, curling himself around Steve protectively though he was still in his slacks and button down.

But this time, if things went wrong, there was no Bucky to press up against. No strong shoulders and gentle curving neck to press his nose into when the weight of the world would come crashing down on him.

By next week, Steve would be going to the doctor’s to get another ultrasound. Assuming he doesn’t have a shy little baby in there, he’ll be able to know what gender he’s expecting. And he honestly wasn’t sure who he wanted to take with him. Lord knew he didn’t want to go alone, but he had no idea who to ask to go with him. He was actually quite sure that if he asked all of them, they would all gladly come with him. (But that would be overwhelming.)

When Steve woke up Wednesday morning, he’d decided to ask Clint to go with him. He had approached the other omega the day before in the kitchen. Clint had just smiled and agreed wholeheartedly. Wednesday morning, Steve woke up to nausea settling into the pit of his stomach. He threw up in his bathroom, deciding that going back to bed would be pointless. If Steve laid or sat anywhere for too long, he started to get restless. Clint had told him that that was normal and that he had felt that way too when he had been pregnant. (He’d told Steve about two weeks after they’d almost lost the baby. Laura had given the go ahead, and Clint had told him with only mild apprehension.)

So Steve got up and dressed, pulling a hoodie over his t-shirt after looking at himself in the mirror for about five minutes. After the serum, Steve had never had a problem with the way he looked, but this was different. Captain America was benched and when people saw him in public, they did a double take, noticing his baby bump. He wasn’t very large or noticeable underneath baggier clothing yet, but he felt as though people were judging him. Captain America pregnant? What a scandal!

Steve was tired of it. He spent most of his time at the tower now, damn near refusing to leave even with the other Avengers.

“Hey, Cap. How’re we feelin’ today? Excited? Nervous? Anything in particular?” Clint greeted. He was strangely wide awake for the time. The archer was never the first one awake, and it took him a hell of a time to get awake enough for the day too. Natasha could attest.

“Uhh… I dunno. I want to be excited…” Steve responded, pouring himself a cup of orange juice and taking his prenatal meds for the day.

“Is there a specific sex you’re hoping for?” Clint asked, leaning his chin on his fists above his breakfast of pancakes drowned in syrup. Just the sight of the breakfast food made Steve want to gag. This pregnancy was messing with his diet, and he wasn’t sure he could take much more of it. Pancakes used to be his favorite thing to make for breakfast. It was simple, and made plenty of food for all of them, unless Thor was visiting.

“Umm…” Steve chewed on his lip a bit. He felt awful for wanting a girl, knowing full well that it was a 50/50 chance. He didn’t like the idea of being disappointed if he did in fact have a little guy in there. “Not really.”

Clint looked up at him with a sympathetic look. Or, as sympathetic as one can look with sticky pancake in your face. The man took a moment to chew his food and swallow it before speaking. “You know, if there is one that you want, it won’t make you a bad parent. Trust me. With mine, each time I had honestly been hoping for the opposite of what they had been. I didn’t love them any less. I wasn’t disappointed at all with my children just because I had been hoping for something a little different. Personally, I think that it was their own way of reminding me that just because they were my babies, doesn’t mean that they aren’t their own person. So what is it?”

Steve was silent. “A girl…”

Clint smiled at him. “Then we’ll start looking at boy’s baby clothes.”

*

In all fairness, Clint had only been half joking when he said they would start preparing for a boy. He’d said it to get a smile on the blonde’s face.

Turns out, however, they really were preparing for a baby boy. Steve had paled and shot a glance at him when the doctor had told him. It had lasted literally a second before the color came back to him and a huge smile graced his features, showing off every one of his perfect, white teeth.

“Congrats, Steve.” Clint said, laying a hand on Steve’s shoulder.  
When they got back to the tower, they hadn’t expected everyone to be sitting in the living room waiting for them. And not just everyone who had been at the tower at the time, oh no. It was everyone including some people who didn’t even live at the tower. Fury was there with Maria Hill, and Thor had shown up at one point with Jane and Darcy. Rhodey was there too. They were all sitting on the couch, absentmindedly watching whatever show Tony had put on. The alpha was sitting between “his” betas. (Everyone knew Stark belonged to Pepper and only Pepper, but everyone teased him and Bruce about being “science boyfriends”.)

“Hey, Cap. How’d it go?” Natasha greeted them, turning herself on the couch. The rest of the room perked up and turned to the two omegas as well.

“Just a normal check up with the doctor. Baby’s healthy. I’m healthy. Life is good.” Steve answered, setting more papers down on the kitchen island, slowly unzipping his jacket to hang over the back of a stool.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great, Cap.” Nat said, waving a hand dismissively. Steve smiled inwardly. He knew what they wanted.

“But come on, you gotta tell us!” Pepper added. Jane and Darcy put out their own excited agreements.

Steve paused, the television the only sound in the room as everyone on the couch waited with bated breath. Clint was watching with an amused smile from his perch on one arm of the couch.

“It’s a boy.”

The room was silent for one breath of a second before everyone was up, yelling different variations of congratulations above each other. Thor stood and had Steve up in his arms, lifting the omega from the floor and spinning him around. Steve laughed at the big, bulky blonde, bracing his hands against Thor’s shoulders to help keep himself up.

“Many congratulations, good Captain!” Thor exclaimed, quieter than he honestly would have used to. Ever since a couple of weeks ago when Steve had complained of a headache and that Thor was being too loud, the blonde Asgardian was containing himself and keeping his voice lower.

“Are we thinking of names yet? Or the nursery?” Maria asked, settling for a reassuring pat to Steve’s thigh. The contact made him want to squirm. For weeks he had been avoiding the fact that he was feeling needy and hormonal. Clint had addressed it with him not too long ago, but Steve had denied it. Afterwards, Clint had warned him that his body may end up going into heat to try and find a new mate and challenge the current bond. And something like that would put a lot of strain on him, and could end up hurting Steve or the baby. Or both, and Steve was trying his best to forget about it.

“Umm… I guess the first step is the nursery, right?” Steve answered, letting himself stay content in Thor’s hold. The taller alpha seemed perfectly happy to keep Steve exactly where he was, not moving him until the captain would tell him otherwise.

“What do you want to do for it? We can repaint and order a crib and a dresser. We can carpet the floor if you want or we can get some cute baby rugs-” Tony was off, listing all the different things they could do and the things they’d get for the room. Steve’s head was spinning. Tony was right… There was so much to do and he hadn’t started thinking of any of it. Steve’s gaze wandered off, fixing itself on something along the far wall. Thor fixed him with a worried look as tremors rocked through his body.

“Steve?” Bruce’s voice was pulling him out of his thoughts. He shook his head, clearing away all the baby stuff for a second.

“We don’t have to focus on all of that right now. We’ll start with painting, okay?” Clint suggested. Tony looked like a reprimanded puppy, and Steve assumed someone had told him to slow his roll and stop freaking Steve out.

Steve nodded slowly, a small smile returning. “Yeah, painting sounds great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think and feel free to point out any and all grammar mistakes so they may be fixed! :)


	5. Meeting You (Officially)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve goes into labor, and his baby boy is born

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has taken much longer than I would have liked, but here it is. Thank you for all the positive input and encouragement.

Steve didn’t know when the singing started. He thinks it was after the dream he had of Bucky curled around him, a hand resting against his growing belly. Bucky had sung into his ear, tracing soothing patterns against his skin. Steve had woken up crying.

It had only been about four thirty in the morning, but by noon, he was still sitting on the floor by the window, humming gently. His doctor had told him that his baby, his precious boy, may be able to hear him by week 19. At 21 weeks, his little one was very interested in moving around a lot, though had stayed still and calm throughout most of the morning. Steve liked to think it was because of his singing.

And the singing continued. Sometimes he took a blanket into the empty room across the hall from his own that would become the nursery. He would sit and rub his belly, staring out at the city through the as of yet uncurtained windows. The singing would start, and he wouldn’t be able to stop. Sometimes people would hear him and come check. More often than not, it was Tony, and Steve had once had the thought that it had to do with Jarvis. Most of the time, they would watch for a moment and then quietly make their exit. Other times, someone would join him on the floor, wrapping themselves around him from behind.

About a week and a half after going to find out his baby’s gender, Steve had gone into heat just like Clint had said he would. He counted himself lucky that he had teammates who cared about him. They all helped him as best they could, getting him to rest and eat during the breaks in the heat.

Time progressed quickly. His eating habits continued to change over the next several weeks. One day he woke up wanting to eat ramen with peanut butter in it. A few days later, just the smell of peanut butter or ramen made him sick. At some point, someone (probably Clint) had thought it would be a wonderful idea to make pie, and made sure to make an apple pie just to make Steve happy. (Yes, he is a walking cliche.) After he took a bite of it, the baby apparently decided he didn’t like it, and Steve was running to spit it out. He actually cried, and he was sure that had he not been pregnant or as hormonally distressed as he was, Tony would have laughed at him.

By the beginning of the third trimester, Steve was growing more and more worried. His bi weekly check ups with his doctor proved that his baby boy was in perfect health. But he couldn’t help but be worried. He didn’t want to lose his baby this time. People were constantly assuring him that he wouldn’t, even if he never actually voiced his fears to them. He had a sneaking suspicion that they all knew something that they shouldn’t have.

Steve was beginning to have trouble sleeping. He disliked the feeling of sleeping alone, and his little boy seemed content to wake him up at every chance he got. Just as he was dropping off one night, there was a hard kick to his stomach, forcing Steve to sit up and glare down at his belly.

“Seriously? I realize that you have all the time in the world to sleep right about now, but I don’t. It’s already midnight, sweetheart…” Steve pleaded. He let himself flop back onto his back, his arms splayed out to his sides. After some time, Steve began to nod off again. And suddenly there was another kick in his side.

“Oh, come on!” Steve had exclaimed into the silent room.

The movements didn’t stop, even when the baby was getting too big to flip around and kick him in the stomach and then the kidney. Steve just wanted this to be over with, especially since the nursery was well on its way to completion. The painting had already been done (with much fretting over him as he stretched to reach higher). Steve loved the soft lavender of the walls with the pale yellow and baby blue designs everyone had helped put up with various stencils. The designs had been kept to one wall to keep the room from feeling cluttered. Steve wanted the crib to sit against that wall. And that’s where it sat, the hard wood painted white, and the sheets dark blue with pink and green monsters and rainbows patterned over it. Steve didn’t know what had possessed him to buy those sheets, but he was of the opinion that the baby would love them. (Not that it really mattered.)

Tony had attached a mobile to the side of the crib so it would hang down over the top. The brunette alpha seemed extremely pleased with the design of it. Each little decoration on it was a symbol from one of the Avengers. There was Thor’s hammer, Cap’s shield, Tony’s Iron Man mask, a purple bow and arrow, and a red and black hourglass. He had rigged it up to spin and play soft music to keep the baby’s attention or put him to sleep.

A rocking chair sat silently by the window, a floor lamp sitting next to it. A dresser that matched the crib was pushed against the opposite wall, pictures and little decorations sitting atop it. There was a tiny little mermaid and shells collected from various beaches around the world (courtesy of Thor and Natasha). There were pictures of Steve (that he had not authorized) sitting around, looking out windows, sketching, or singing while looking down at his belly.

The most important picture sat right in the middle of the mostly empty picture frames. It was a picture of Steve and Bucky not long before the mission on the train. It was in black and white, and though Steve remembered how downtrodden they had often felt during the war, they smiled at each other in the picture. There was genuine happiness and pure love in the wide, soft smiles as the two held each other close. Steve remembered that day.

Peggy had been the one to give him the picture. She had had it for years and made a copy of it for herself before giving the original to Steve. He had found her about a month earlier. He loved to visit with her, though sometimes he found it rather painful. Her mind was going, and sometimes she forgot that Steve had come out of the ice and act as if it was the first time she had seen him in 70 years. For the most part though, she was doing okay.

She was even the one who had helped him pick out a name for his baby boy. He had refused to tell anyone else what it was until his son was safely in his arms, and had yet to refer to the baby he was carrying inside him as such. He was worried that if he did, it would be asking for the worst to happen, for him to have complications and lose his baby so close to the end of term.  
Peggy understood that about him. She had had a miscarriage, years back. As soon as she had had a name picked out, she’d begun to refer to her unborn baby girl with it, then lost her not a month later. Afterwards, she refused to even think of using a name during the pregnancy until her baby was in her arms, alive and well.

Now, at a full 38 weeks pregnant, Steve was waiting impatiently for his due date, and he could feel that his little companion was too. Steve honestly just wanted a night where he didn’t wake up to kicking and shuffling in his abdomen. He wanted to start working out again. He wanted to stop wobbling around when he walked. He really wanted his ankles and feet to stop swelling. And most of all, he wanted people to stop coddling him. Really, one would think he was dying, not pregnant, from the way the other Avengers had been acting for the past two and a half months. Steve was sick of it.

At three in the morning on May 17th, Steve was finally positive that he was going into labor. He had been half certain he was earlier that evening. The pain hadn’t been unbearable yet, so he went to bed and attempted to sleep. By 2:53, the contractions were for sure.

“Captain Rogers, should I alert the other Avengers?” Jarvis asked, the AI’s voice sounding around Steve as he attempted to push himself to his feet.

“Yeah, Jarvis. I need to get to the hospital now. Call Dr. Craycraft please.” Steve huffed out.

“Yes, sir.”

Tony had been surprisingly calm about Steve going into labor, and Clint had been the one to actually get their asses moving. He interrogated Steve for information about when the contractions had started, and once Steve had finished speaking, the omega was hustling the other two down the elevator and into a car pronto. Tony drove with the gas pedal barely off the floor.

“Dr. Craycraft is waiting for you.” Jarvis said just as Tony pulled into the parking lot.

“Thanks, Jar.” Tony replied.

Hours later, Steve sat quietly in a hospital bed, a tiny bundle of blankets in his arms. He cooed down at the newborn, who seemed content to lay swaddled in his father’s grip for the time being. He had Bucky’s eyes, bright blue, a lighter shade than Steve’s. His baby’s eyes were icier than his own, but still held a warmth to them. The thin, wispy hair atop the baby’s head was the same dark brown as Bucky’s had been.

Steve looked up when the door opened. As tired as he was, he was overjoyed to see his friends standing there, eagerly looking in at him and his child. Natasha was the first one into the room, closely followed by Bruce and Thor, Tony and Clint bringing up the rear as they had already seen the two.  
“Hi.” Steve greeted them with a smile. Natasha’s answering smile lit up the whole dimly lit room. The lights had been turned off save for one small lamp on the table beside him. She hurried over to his side and leaned over him, looking right at the baby.

“Aww… Hi, baby. Look at you, sweetheart. Aren’t you precious?” She cooed quietly. The baby stared up at the redhead with the same sort of fascination that the grown woman held for him.

“Congratulations, Cap.” Bruce let his hand rest on Steve’s shoulder as he watched father and son quietly. Steve smiled back at the brunette.

“Did you ever decide on a name to give him, Captain?” Thor asked, his quiet voice even quieter than normal.

“I did…” Steve mused quietly, looking back down at his baby. One small hand found its way outside of the blanket he was wrapped in, gripping at Steve’s offered finger.

“Yeah? And what’s that?” Natasha asked, a playful smile dancing across her lips as she looked up from the baby.

“Jamie David Rogers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there are a lot of Jameses in the MCU already, but I would like it noted that Jamie is not short for anything. Jamie will be shortened to various nicknames later on, but his name is not James. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter. Look out for the next one. Thank you and let me know what you think! :)


	6. Learning More, Growing More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some sort little scenes of Jamie within his first year of life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me this long. I know it's been a while since I updated. Band camp has been more than enough to keep me busy, lol. Thanks for all the support, and I hope you like this chapter.

Steve didn’t sleep too badly after Jamie came home. He knew that he would be up at all hours of the night with his baby, but having other people around made it a lot easier than he had originally expected. Clint was all too happy to get up at two in the morning to feed Jamie. (Since Steve was a male omega, he relied on formula to feed Jamie.) And Natasha was always down for rocking with Jamie in the rocking chair at four o’clock. Thor got Jamie to laugh more often than anyone else (except for Steve, of course).

It was three thirty when Steve pushed open the door to Jamie’s room three months later. Steve yawned and reached up to rub at one eye as he trudged over towards Jamie’s crib. The three-month-old was whining, his fists flailing around as he kicked around the small mattress.

“Jamie baby, what is it? I just fed you and hour ago…” Steve asked, reaching down into the crib and picking up the tiny baby. He was soft flexible as babies are, his skin still just a little pink. Jamie’s face was red from crying and waking up his father.

Steve huffed a little. He couldn’t be hungry, and he had just changed Jamie after feeding him. As soon as Jamie was lifted against Steve’s chest, he was settling down. Jamie stopped crying, his face nuzzling into the side of Steve’s neck.

“So that’s what you wanted, was it? You wanted Daddy’s attention, huh?” Steve asked, stepping across the room to settle into the rocking chair. He didn’t bother turning on the lamp, allowing Jamie to fall back into sleep against his chest. It took no more than ten minutes, but Steve let himself rock for a good half an hour before standing back up to set Jamie back in his crib. When Jamie didn’t cry out again, Steve reached to turn the knob on the mobile above the crib. The little device spun and began playing rainforest noises. (Steve had requested Tony add a nature sounds feature.)

*

“Steve!” Clint called from the living room. “Steve come out here!”

The blonde omega stumbled quickly out from his bedroom towards Clint’s voice. What he saw was his baby boy, stumbling haltingly across the floor towards Clint’s open arms as Natasha recorded it on her phone.

Jamie took one last wavering step before falling into Clint’s arms. Clint lifted the baby high into the air, Jamie laughing high and happy.

“Good job, Jamie! See Daddy over there? He saw you!” The omega pointed over to the taller blonde, drawing Jamie’s attention to his father. The little boy’s face lit up, his bright ice blue eyes glittering in the light from the floor to ceiling windows. He reached his hands over to the blonde, giggling happily.

“Come here, baby.” Steve reached out for his son when Clint stooped down to place the small brunette on his feet. And then Jamie was toddling off towards his father, hands grabbing up at him.

Steve scooped him up, hefting him up onto his hip.

“Look at you, sweetheart!” Steve pressed his nose into his baby’s hair. The dark brunette locks had grown significantly, and Steve knew that at some point soon he would have to take his baby boy to get his hair cut soon. (He was dreading that one.) The hair curled softly, silky and shiny.

Jamie snuggled into Steve’s shoulder, content suddenly to stay off the ground.  
*

The first time Steve left the tower to go to Shield headquarters filled him with dread. He didn’t want to leave Jamie at home alone without him. The little boy had turned one, and Steve had refused to go on any missions until now. Even this one was only supposed to take a day or less.

Steve was gone for three days. He felt a deep seated dread settled in the pit of his stomach. What if something had happened? What if the tower wasn’t even there anymore? What if Loki had escaped and come back and taken Jamie away with him? What if one of Tony’s experiments had gone horribly wrong and the tower filled with noxious gas and Jamie and the others had suffocated and died.

Steve almost decided to just skip debriefing with Fury before he hopped on the jet with Natasha to head back home.

It took forty three minutes and twenty eight seconds for the jet to land at Avengers Tower. (Steve counted.) Steve was stepping off the plane and moving quickly towards the door. He hadn’t bothered to take off his Captain America uniform before leaving headquarters.

“Hey, Steve. That mission took longer than expected, huh?” Bruce called from his spot on the couch.

“Yeah, yeah. Where’s Jamie?” Steve asked absentmindedly. Bruce chuckled at him lightly.

“He’s in his room with Tony. Jamie pulled him in there about an hour and a half ago.”

Steve was out of the room before the beta even finished speaking. The blonde walked briskly (if not a little frantically) down the hall towards his son’s bedroom. It had been much too long for Steve to go without seeing his baby boy.

When Steve reached the door, he stood outside it for a moment, collecting himself. Jamie didn’t need to see him so frazzled. Reaching out, he grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. Steve poked his head into the room first with a “Knock knock” looking around for the tiny little brunette.

There in the middle of the floor was Jamie, sitting with Tony in front of his dollhouse. Tony had built the playset for the boy first his birthday. (It was taller than Jamie was when he stood up.) The little boy held the Omega Male doll in one hand and the Son doll in the other. (Steve was not kidding, that’s what the packaging for these toys had said.)  
“Hey, Steve. You’re back!” Tony greeted cheerfully when the blonde entered.

Jamie’s head was whipping around so fast it made Steve dizzy to watch. The little boy let out a loud shriek of excitement and pushed himself up onto wobbly legs. He rushed over towards his father to throw his arms up in the air and demand to be picked up.

“Dadda!” Jamie called. Steve froze for a moment. His little boy had said something. Was that Jamie’s first word? Did Steve miss it while he was gone? “Dadda!”

Steve crouched down and scooped the blue eyed boy into his arms, lifting him high into the air. Jamie laughed high and excited again. Steve settled him against his chest, the boy happily nuzzling into Steve’s neck, scenting him. A tiny little hand reached out for the star on his chest, ity bity fingers petting the hard fabric.

“I’m glad you’re home, Cap. That kid of yours has been going nuts without you here.” Tony lamented, standing from his spot on the floor. The doll family was left strewn across the floor outside the house. Though Steve did notice that one doll was tucked safely away in bed. Jamie’s Alpha Male doll lay neatly tucked under a blanket on the bed. (That doll never moved much.)

“Oh yeah? My little monster making a fuss, huh?” Steve said. He forced a grin onto his face.

“Don’t even, Steve. Do not fake that smile.” Tony strode across the room quickly, halting right in front of his friend. Steve’s smile dropped instantly.

“I missed it, didn’t I?” Steve whispered.

Tony nodded sadly. “When you weren’t there at bedtime, he threw a fit. He stood outside your door and cried and suddenly we heard him yelling ‘Dadda’ as he pushed at the door.” Tony said. “Poor kid was a wreck.”

“How did you calm him down?” Jamie was falling asleep against Steve’s shoulder, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. It was about time for his nap anyway.

“We were showing him pictures of you and then Nat pulled the picture of you and Bucky off his dresser. He sat down on the floor with it and stared at it until he fell asleep.” Tony glanced over at the dresser pointedly.

Steve was nearly in tears. His little boy cried for him and was calmed down by an old, black and white photograph of his fathers, one of which he had never met and didn’t even know the name of.

“Thanks, Tony.” Steve said, his voice a little choked. He smiled at the brunette then, a real, genuine smile, through his teary eyes. Tony nodded back at him. He patted the blonde’s shoulder before rubbing Jamie’s back and leaving the room.

Steve looked down at his son, the top of his brunette head so small against him. His baby boy was already walking and he’d said his first word… He walked gently over to the rocking chair, settling himself and his son in it. It was moments like this, when he sat with Jamie and thought about his baby boy growing up, that Steve only wanted for two things. First, for his sweet boy to be happy, and second, for Bucky to be here to see their son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know of any grammar mistakes you find so they may be fixed. Hopefully updates will come a little faster with band camp over.
> 
> Feel free to come join me on Tumblr and talk about this or anything else! :)
> 
> [RobinPlaysTrumpet15 on Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/robinplaystrumpet15)


	7. The Winter Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky finally enters the picture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so so so so so so sorry for the lack of posting. This chapter is long overdue, and I hope you forgive me. I'm a senior in high school with summer work and almost constant marching band practice, life is getting busy, man. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter and let me know what you think!
> 
> P.S.: I apologize for anything wrong plot wise. I have not watched The Winter Soldier in a while so, I was looking up clips on YouTube. D:

The older Jamie got, the more Steve was able to see Bucky in his little boy. Because of Jamie’s brunette hair and icey blue eyes, he had already looked less like Steve and more like his long gone father. Some nights Steve lay awake thinking about it. Even at such a young age, just about to turn two, some of the toddlers’ mannerisms were strikingly similar to Bucky’s. He was protective of the things he cared about, specifically Steve. The Avengers found it rather adorable and teased the blonde about it often.

Except when the protectiveness was warranted. There had been a couple of missions when they had all come back and Steve had been a little worse for wear. Jamie hadn’t let go for hours.

Of course, it wasn’t just Steve. It was everyone else as well. Jamie was protective and clingy towards all of them. Not that any of them really had much of a problem with that. There was a video that circulated for a while of Jamie telling Loki off in his half baby babble when the god had come to mess the the Avengers again. Loki had just stood there and looked confused, though mildly amused. Jamie’s face had been priceless, fully serious, his blue little eyes blazing with anger.

Steve noticed that he had seen that exact expression on Bucky’s face before. It was the face he used when someone had decided Steve would be their next target. Which, Steve supposed, was appropriate, given the situation.

*

“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Jamie. Happy birthday to you!” Everyone sang to the toddler. Jamie sat in his high chair, a small cake sitting in front of him. There were no candles on it (given that he was just turning two, Steve didn’t want the fire near his boy). As soon as the song was over, Jamie began laughing, clapping his little hands together. Steve encouraged him to eat the cake, though Jamie didn’t seem to have any inclination to even acknowledge that it existed.

The day had gone extremely well. Natasha and Clint had gotten father and son ready early in the morning, dragging them to Shield headquarters. Steve wasn’t so sure that much work had gotten done over the course of the day. Regardless, Jamie had a blast. There had been several incidents of him trying to run off and play hide and seek through the base, but he was always found. And every time, he laughed high and loud before running off again.

It wasn’t long after Jamie’s birthday that things got a little strange. Steve had just gotten back from his most recent mission to find Nick Fury hiding out in his apartment. Jamie had stayed just across the hall with Sharon until he got home. Jamie had called out to him and snuggled into Steve’s shoulder despite his father still being in his uniform.

“You left your radio on.”

Steve was sure, positive beyond a shred of doubt, that he had not left his radio on. Besides that, the song playing was something his owned on record for his record player.

Steve held Jamie closer to his chest, moving towards his door cautiously. Inside, his record player was definitely the source of the music, and next to it in his arm chair sat Nick Fury. He was bloody and bruised, and had definitely seen some action recently.

Jamie rested silently against Steve’s shoulder as the other man had some sort of conversation with his daddy. He focused hard on the star against Steve’s chest. This outfit was different than the other one. It was darker. Jamie liked the other one better. He recognized the music playing. It was louder than his dadda ever played it.

Loud bangs sounded through the apartment. Glass shattered. Jamie screamed, Steve clutching his baby closer to him and dropping down to the floor.

The arms around Jamie let him go, pushing the toddler against the wall. “Jamie, stay!” Steve yelled, running away.

“Dadda!”   
Jamie was scared. Jamie wanted Auntie Nat and Uncle Tony. His daddy was gone, and he didn’t know where he had gone or why he left. The broken glass was still on the floor, and sound had scared him. He cried, wanting his daddy to come back and fix everything like he always did. When Jamie accidentally broke his alpha doll, his dad fixed it, and made it just like new. When Jamie knocked the picture frame down onto the floor, Steve moved the picture into a new one because the glass was broken. Jamie trusted his dadda to fix things when they went wrong.

*

Jamie liked Sam. He was kind with a nice face. Sam smelled like Bruce and Pepper. He smelled clean and fresh, like clean laundry and spring. His daddy smelled differently. He was sweet, like the pie Nat had made once. She had called it something… Cinnamon Apple… 

Nat held him in her lap, arms clutched around him tightly. Jamie was supposed to be in a car seat. Steve couldn’t stop himself from worrying silently. There were other things to focus on, and it was killing him to think that his son was not currently his priority. Jamie seemed happily content to just reach for Nat’s hair and twist it into “curls” with his chubby little fingers.

“What? Are you crazy? That is a terrible, terrible idea.” Suddenly, a metal hand was punching through the window, pulling the man out of the car. Jamie laughed, and Steve could not, for the life of him, figure out why. Until he realized that the man’s scream sounded like the fake ones on the cartoons Jamie watched with Tony. Yep, no more of those.

Gunshots came through the roof, Nat launching herself into the front seat with Steve, Jamie still clutched in her arms. Steve put the car into park, forcing a fast stop, their attacker flying off the roof. The man’s metal fingers gouged deep lines into the asphalt as he went tumbling. His face was shielded, mouth and eyes completely covered.

Suddenly another car came ramming into the back of the car, the passengers of the car lurching forward. The vehicle behind them pushed their car forward, ever closer to the mysterious, masked figure until he jumped, slamming himself down onto the hood.

Jamie was crying now. Steve didn’t know what to do anymore. The metal hand was crashing through the windshield, pulling the steering wheel out altogether.

“Shit!” Sam yelled.

Nat finally found her gun from the floor, allowing Steve to take hold of Jamie, shooting up through the roof.  
As the car goes careening, completely out of control, Steve forms a plan. A dangerous, awful plan, but a plan nonetheless. He braced his shield against the car door. “Hold on!”

Steve locks one arm around Natasha, both of hers gripping Jamie. Sam held on as well as he could. Suddenly the car flipped, and Steve busted the car door off. The four went falling and then Steve, Nat, and Jamie sliding on the car door, skidding down the lane on the bridge. Sam had tucked and rolled behind them.

Jamie was wailing. Screams and cries tearing from his throat. Steve just wanted to stop the world for a moment, pause everything, and care for his son. He couldn’t find any cuts or “boo-boos” anywhere on Jamie, but that didn’t mean the little boy wasn’t scared out of his mind. Never, not once, had Steve ever brought his son along on any mission he’d ever had. But what choice had he had? Hydra was in Shield! He could not, in good conscience, leave Jamie anywhere that he could be gotten to. This way, Steve was able to watch over the boy himself.

Although, this guy trying to kill them had not really been on the agenda.

“Jamie, Jamie please. Stop crying, it’s okay.” Steve whispered, bouncing the toddler on his hip once he was standing up again. The blonde had strategically held the boy in his shield arm, the tiny child hidden behind the vibranium.

“Steve, he can’t stay here.” Natasha said. They boy eyed the figure now. A guy from the truck that had rammed them was attempting to hand him a rather large gun, but he wouldn’t take it. He just stood there and stared them down.

“Great advice, Nat. Let me just call the sitter real quick.” Maybe he’d said it a little coolly, but Steve couldn’t find it in him to care. He was on edge, and they had all just about died, and given another minute of standing around, they’d probably be dead at the hands of this… Winter Soldier.

A moment later and the man was taking the gun, and shooting it. And, of course, it wasn’t a gun. It was some rocket launcher. It hit the shield straight on, sending Steve and Jamie flying. The shield went off in some other direction, but steve kept a firm hold of his son, tucking his boy around the small brunette, who had started crying even louder at the impact. His ears were ringing from the hit.

The following crashing through the window of a bus and the subsequent hit and flip only made Steve hold on tighter. When the blonde had regained his bearings, he uncurled from around Jamie, finding him only a little scraped up. Steve could have sworn… Jamie shouldn’t have made it through that. No matter how much it hurt to think, Steve knew it was true. Jamie should at least have to go to the hospital. But, after checking him over quickly, Jamie seemed no worse for wear than he had been before.

‘What the hell…’ Steve thought to himself. He grabbed Jamie up again, getting the both of them out of the flipped city bus.

Minutes of fighting later, Natasha was hit. The Winter Soldier had gotten her in the shoulder. Steve left Jamie within ear shot, but not close enough to get hurt before engaging, running for force to knock the man over with the shield. The fight was not going well. He wasn’t getting beaten, but neither was the other guy. When he ran out of guns, the man pulls a knife from his side. Hydra wasn’t going to attack him with a pocket knife, his ass. If he could, Steve would be having some serious words with Howard Stark after this.

Steve noticed that the man didn’t smell like anything. Not in the way betas didn’t have a strong scent, but in the way that made Steve on edge. The man literally had no scent. Steve couldn’t tell if he was beta or alpha or omega. He knew that a lot of people would reject the idea of an omega being trained by Hydra to become this, but Steve was Captain America and he was an omega. It wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world to be able to tell, but he was. Without his suppressants, he smelled just the same as he did before the serum, maybe a little stronger since he was no longer to weak.

But this man… nothing. Just absolutely nothing.

When Steve flipped the man, pulling off what remained of his mask, the metal scent blocker, Steve couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Standing in front of him, in the flesh, was Bucky Barnes. But no… that was impossible. Bucky died, Steve knew. He watched his friend fall. But here he was, trying to kill him and his friends.

*

The Asset had lost his scent blocking mask. His target had pulled it off, and suddenly he could smell him. The blonde he was supposed to kill smelled… sweet… familiarly sweet. Almost like… almost as if the Asset knew him. Suddenly he felt something building in the pit of his stomach, a strong need to care… protect. He wanted to grab the big, muscular omega that stood in front of him and hide him away from the world, protect him. Suddenly every other person running through the street to get away was a threat.

“Dadda!”   
A tiny child, no more than three maybe, was running up to clutch at the omega’s leg. There were scrapes and bruises all down his arms and on his knees. His face was red and tear stained. His hair was wavy, long enough to brush his shoulders in little wisps, pulled back in a tiny little ponytail. It was the same chocolate brown as the Asset’s, and his eyes were the same blue… 

The Asset did not have children… He did not have a mate. There was no one for him to protect… Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know of any grammar mistakes you found so I may fix them. Let me know what he think! :D
> 
> P.S.: Come yell at me on Tumblr. Find me here


	8. Trying Not to Lose You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes back with Steve and Jamie. Steve goes into heat a couple weeks later, leaving Clint in charge of Jamie. Bucky leaves after an incident that sends their son to the ER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm actually impressed that I got this chapter done so fast! Also, hot damn, this is the longest chapter that I've written.
> 
> I hope you guys like it and let me know what you think!

“Dadda!”

Steve felt himself pale. No. No no no no no… He told Jamie to stay away. His baby was going to get hurt, he knew it.

“Jamie baby, go. You can’t be here.” Steve reached down to push at the two-year-old. The brunette held on, eyes locked on the man standing just ten feet in front of them.

“Pappa!” Jamie called out to the man. Steve’s heart dropped. The look on Bucky’s face was strange, almost conflicted. His own ice blue eyes were held firmly by Jamie’s, not able to look away or move.

“Bucky?” Steve said quietly. Suddenly Bucky’s eyes were on him again.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” The brunette starting forward, swiftly making his way over to father and son. Steve readied himself for a hit.

Bucky stopped, a foot of space left between him and Steve. His eyes flicked down Steve, stopped briefly at Jamie again, then back up to Steve. “Who are you? Why do I know you?” Bucky whispered. He was shaking, not hard enough for anyone but Steve to be able to notice.

“Pappa?” Jamie said again, drawing two pairs of eyes back down to him. Right at that moment, his face was all Bucky. The only small feature of Steve to be seen was Jamie’s nose. It was still small, and upturned, just a tiny little button nose that steve loved to boop and kiss and poke. Jamie loved it.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. People call you Bucky. We grew up together in Brooklyn. My name is Steven Grant Rogers. We were mates. We got pregnant just before you went missing during World War II. This is our son, Jamie David Rogers.” Steve whispered. He tried to rush his words a little, knowing that if he had any time at all, he had to make the most of it. “You don’t remember anything, do you?”

Bucky nodded, almost seeming sad. “But… it feels familiar. You feel familiar…”

Steve couldn’t believe it. His mate wasn’t dead, he was alive. But he didn’t remember anything from his life. He’s been turned into a weapon. Steve just wanted to latch onto the man and never let him go. He wanted to tell Bucky every little thing that he remembered, wrap him up in his arms and keep him there.

“I can’t stay…” Bucky whispered.

“Why not?”

“They’ll come for me… I can’t let them close to you, I can feel that…” Bucky reasoned.

“We can deal with them! Bucky, please!” Steve pleaded.

“I’ll be putting you in danger!” The shorter man argued. “I will not risk-”

“This whole thing is risking us, Buck!” Steve retorted. He regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth.

“S-Steve, I don’t remember anything about you or me or anything we went through together…”

“I’ll help you remember. You can, I promise. I know you can…” Steve refused to acknowledge the tears that were welling up in his eyes now. He knew Bucky saw them, but he didn’t expect the tenderness that the man responded with.

“You have a lot of faith in me…” Bucky whispered, bringing his flesh hand up to Steve’s face. “Please don’t cry…”

“Pappa…” The two men looked down, suddenly noticing that Jamie had switched the leg that he was hanging onto. His arms were wrapped around Bucky’s leg, staring straight up at his father. “You ith in my pic-tur…” Jamie mumbled. He had never gotten out a sentence that long before…

“Steve, we gotta go!” Sam was suddenly running up, stopping by Natasha to help her up. “What’s going on?”

Bucky was moving closer to Steve then, a soft growl escaping him. Sam looked shocked, holding up his free hand to show he wasn’t trying to threaten.

“Sam, we have a situation. We’re leaving now.” Steve said. He wasn’t giving Bucky an option in this anymore. He was coming with them no matter what he was worried would happen. Steve was not letting him go back to Hydra. Never again.

“Uhh… Right. So, we’re going with the man that was just trying to kill us?” Sam asked.

“I will explain on the way.” Steve took a step away from Bucky to reach down for Jamie. Suddenly the toddler was fighting him, unwilling to let Bucky’s leg go. Bucky was startled by the reaction, to say the least.

“Pappa!” Jamie was crying again. “No, Pappa, carry!”

Bucky looked at Steve for help. His look screamed ‘what the fuck do I do?!’. Steve shrugged at him.

“Looks like you’re stuck with him now, Buck.”

Natasha’s eyes widened at Steve. She knew then that any reservations she’d had about the Winter Soldier could wait for a while. If Steve was going to let him carry his child… well, they were safe for at least the time being.

*

Hydra was taken down easily. So far, no one had come for Bucky yet, but Steve wasn’t done keeping his guard up about it. Bucky had definitely been right. They were all in danger. Bucky’s handlers wanted him back, without a doubt.

He had been checked out thoroughly by doctor upon doctor. They were able to identify the scent blockers that Bucky had been kept on. These drugs were strong, able to completely block his scent for three weeks at a time.

It was about a week after everything had been finished and taken care of that Steve could begin to smell a little of Bucky’s scent. The blockers must have been wearing off. The scent wasn’t affecting him, so he figured that everything would be fine when the scent blockers were completely gone.

He was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Steve woke up four days later, an arm wrapped firmly around his waist. He wasn’t quite used to that anymore. Bucky had only slept with him for the past couple of days. Something was off, Steve could tell. He felt hot and a little sick. His bed didn’t quite smell the same as it always did. But for the moment, it seemed to be early, so Steve turned over, snuggling further into Bucky’s side. He nosed along Bucky’s jaw, near his ear. That seemed different too… smelled different…

The smell was quickly pulling Steve back into sleep, though he felt hotter than he had in awhile. He brushed it off though. He ran warmer than normal anyway.

*

When Steve woke up again, he knew what was different. Bucky’s smell surrounded him. Suddenly, the room that he had called home for the past three years actually felt like home. He felt as if he was back in their tiny apartment in Brooklyn, huddled under the covers to escape the cold before Bucky inevitably had to leave for work. The smell was comforting, though it was making him hot, tightening his gut.

Slick ran between his thighs, soaking his sweat pants. Steve groaned, his cock hard, pressed against the mattress.

Steve was in heat.

Bucky was waking up. He sniffed the air, his eyes not even open yet, before he was suddenly wide awake. He sat up, pulling Steve with him. The blonde whined at the movement, pressing closer to Bucky’s chest.

“You’re… you’re in heat!” the brunette gasped. Steve nodded silently.

“Buck… Bucky, please…” Steve pleaded.

Bucky sat stock still for a moment. There was no way he could tell his omega no, even if he was just beginning to relearn his past, thanks to Steve. But he couldn’t let Jamie walk in when he wakes up either. So Bucky got himself up out of bed for three seconds, much to the distress of Steve, tip toed across the hallway, peaked into his son’s room and found the little toddler still asleep.

“G’morning, Bucky. What’s up?” Clint asked through a yawn.  
“Can you watch Jamie for the day?” Bucky asked. Clint stopped. Usually Bucky didn’t answer him with anything more than a grunt.

“Sure, why?”

“Steve’s in heat and-”

“Go, go. I got Jamie.” Clint said, pushing the taller brunette away from Jamie’s door.

Bucky thanked him before returning to Steve.

*

“Uncky Clin’.” Jamie called from his place on the floor. He was curled up in a pile of blankets with his black stuffed dog, watching Aladdin.

“What is it, sweetheart?” Clint himself was also curled up with a blanket on the couch.

“Dadda? Pappa?”

Clint paused for a moment. “Your dadda isn’t feeling good, so Pappa is taking care of him.”

“Dadda sick?”

“Yeah, that’s why you have to stay out here.” Clint said. Jamie seemed to accept the answer and hummed along with A Whole New World in his unintelligible baby babble.

*

“Hungy!” Jamie suddenly flew out of his little nest on the floor. He pulled himself up onto the couch beside Clint and placed himself right in the archer’s lap.

“You want lunch, Jame?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want mac and cheese?”

“No.”  
“Chicken nuggets?”

“No.”

“Fruit?”

“No!”

“Then what do you want?” Clint asked.

“Samich!” Jamie smiled smuggly at Clint.

“A sandwich?”

“Yeah!”

Had Jamie ever had a sandwich before? Had Steve given him one? He must have… 

Just at that moment, Bucky came walking out into the living room. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, resembling his son’s. He looked as if he had just taken a shower.

“Pappa!” Jamie totally forgot about Clint for the time being, launching himself off the couch and running for his father. “Pappa! Dadda okay?”

“Yeah, Jamie. Dadda’s okay. I’m going to get him something to eat. Do you wanna help me, darlin’?” Bucky stooped down and scooped Jamie up into his arms. Jamie settled on Bucky’s hip the same way he ever had with Steve. He was shrieking with laughter a moment later when Bucky tickled his sides, nosing at the wispy hairs falling out of the hair tie.

“Bucky, has Jamie ever had a sandwich?” Clint asked, standing up and letting his blanket settle on the couch cushion.

“Hmm… Maybe.” Bucky thought for a moment. “You want a sandwich, kiddo?” Jamie nodded enthusiastically. Bucky chuckled at him. “Alright then.”

“Peanut butter and honey good?” Clint asked, making his way to the kitchen and pulling out the bread. Bucky nodded, balancing Jamie on his hip as he began preparing something for Steve to eat in the lull of is heat.

When the food was all ready, Bucky took two turkey sandwiches back to his and Steve’s room, leaving Clint to sit with Jamie at the island. The little boy seemed to like the sandwich well enough. Clint found it immensely funny watch the toddler eat it. The peanut butter stuck in his mouth and made it hard for the little boy to chew and swallow, though he appeared to enjoy the task of eating it.

Not halfway through the sandwich though, Jamie began coughing and wheezing. His skin began to get blotchy and red. Clint flew into overdrive. Jamie was having a reaction to the food.

The man grabbed the sandwich out of Jamie’s hands before hoisting the boy into his arms and running for the elevator. As he did, Clint pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialing 911.

“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” A calm voice said from the other end of the line.

“My friends’ son is have an allergic reaction. I need an ambulance.”

“Yes, sir. Where are you now?”

“Stark Tower. 200 Park Avenue.”

“Help is on the way. How old is the child?”

“Two years.”

“Thank you, sir. The paramedics are on their way.”

The elevator dinged open a moment later in the lobby of the tower. There Clint stayed with Jamie, constantly talking to the little boy. Workers were frantically asking questions, recognizing the son of Captain America.

“What is he allergic to?” the desk receptionist asked, running to kneel beside Clint. The blonde archer shook his head.

“I don’t know. I fed him a peanut butter and honey sandwich just a moment ago…”

“My daughter is allergic to peanuts.” The omega receptionist explained. This happened when she was about his age too. Did you call the paramedics?”

Clint nodded. Jamie’s eyes fell closed suddenly, his breathing labored and wheezy. A second later, sirens sounded outside the front doors and the paramedics were rushing into the building, taking Jamie away on a gurney and escorting the toddler and Clint to the hospital.

*

Clint was left in the waiting room. During that time, he got a text from Steve, asking where he and Jamie were. Instead of replying, Clint hit the call button on Steve’s contact and paced anxiously as he waited for the blonde omega to pick up.

“Clint? What’s up?” Steve said.

“Steve, I’m at the hospital. Jamie had an allergic reaction to his lunch. He’s in the emergency room with the doctors.” Clint explained hurriedly. He was sure that any second now, Steve was going to explode and he and Bucky would be here within two seconds.

“The ER?!” Steve yelled. Clint flinched slightly, the volume messing with his hearing aid. “We’ll be right there. What hospital are you at?”

“St. Mary’s Pediatric Hospital.” Clint was suddenly extremely grateful that the children’s hospital was so close to the tower. He didn’t even get a reply from Steve before the line cut out and Clint was left to sit and wait.

*

Steve was glad that this heat had ended up so mysteriously short. When Bucky had gone to get lunch for the both of them, he had thought he was just going through a lull in the heat, but he soon realized that it was over. Just like that. It was a little strange. Even when Steve had been thin and sickly, his heats had never been this short, lasting only a morning.

He and Bucky ran into the waiting room of the ER, spotting Clint immediately.

“Steve!” Clint called to him. The blonde was making his way over to the archer, bucky in tow right behind him. “Steve, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“Is Jamie okay?” Steve demanded. Truth be told, he didn’t blame Clint at all, but at the moment he was much more worried about his son.

Clint shrugged his shoulders sadly. “No one has come to tell me anything.”  
Steve nodded. He dropped into the chair beside Clint’s. What if his baby boy didn’t make it? What if he dies? Steve wouldn’t have been able to do anything to stop it. He tried hard not to cry and he felt Bucky’s hand rubbing at his neck and shoulders. Steve remembered when Bucky would do that before the war. He did it a lot after Steve’s miscarriage, and especially after particularly bad missions during the war. Bucky didn’t remember doing it, but Steve did.

“Jamie Rogers?” A doctor came out of the double doors, looking around the room. Clint, Steve, and Bucky stood up, walking towards her.

“We’re Jamie’s parents.” Steve said, hand gripping Bucky’s tightly.

“You’ve been exceptionally lucky. We almost lost him.” The beta woman said. Her graying light brunette hair was pulled back in a loose bun, a pen keeping it held in place.

“But he’ll be okay, right?” Clint asked.

She nodded. “He will be alright. But he is severely allergic to peanuts. You must watch him carefully from now on. We’re going to keep him overnight for observation.”

Steve let out a breath of relief that he hadn’t known he’d been holding. The doctor motioned for the three to follow her back into the hallway. She led them around a turn and into a room. There Steve saw his baby, lying in a white bed that was much too big for him, hooked up to a couple machines. His heart monitor beeped steadily, though the sound unnerved him.

“He should wake up soon.” the doctor said before leaving.

Steve sat in the chair nearest the bed, pulling it closer. Jamie’s breath puffed softly against the plastic oxygen shield against his face that was helping him breathe. Bucky stood silently behind him, watching their son sleep, not even twitching. Clint sat on the other side of the bed.

“Thank you for bringing him here, Clint.” Steve said, not even looking up at his friend. Clint shrugged noncommittally.

*

From the moment Jamie came home, everyone was fawning over him. The little punk loved it. He absolutely loved the attention, and even though he had nearly died, it hadn’t seemed to affect him much. He didn’t act any differently. He was just as cute and playful. He went running around his room and the living room, jumping up onto his fathers’ bed first thing in the morning. (For being so young, Steve had decided to move him into a ‘big boy bed’ and out of the crib.

Jamie recovered well, and every peanut item in the tower was removed. No more peanuts, peanut butter, peanut butter pop tarts, peanut granola bars, nothing. It was all gone the second the others heard Jamie was coming home from the hospital.

Not a month later, Bucky left. He had left a note for Steve, and a separate one for Steve to read to Jamie. Bucky had to figure things out for himself, he was sure. He needed to make sure Hydra never came for him or his mate and child. Bucky was determined to take care of them, and the only way he thought he could do that was to leave and find out who he was first before trying to be a father and a mate.

Jamie had cried, and secretly, so had Steve. That morning, Steve had woken up to a note on Bucky’s pillow, explaining that when the time was right, he would come back. It wouldn’t take long, he promised.

When Steve had composed himself enough to go check on Jamie, he found the little boy pulling a piece of paper out of his doll house. Steve went in, took the paper, and sat down with his son to read it.

Dear Jamie,

I love you, more than you will ever know. But I have to go fix a few things. I will be back soon. Don’t miss me too much while I’m gone.

Love, Pappa

P.S.: Take care of your Dadda for me, and don’t eat any peanuts

Jamie had laughed mid cry at his father’s joke. The little devil had the same sense of humor as his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did change the story line of Winter Soldier slightly for this, obviously. Eventually, we'll pick up into the story line of Civil War. If you haven't seen Civil War, I suggest you do see it sometime before reading the next couple of chapters. I'm hoping to get into that soon.
> 
> As always, if you find any grammar mistakes, let me know so that I can fix them.
> 
> I hope you liked it and let me know what you think!
> 
> Join me here on Tumblr


	9. Lovely, Confusing You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve begins to notice odd differences about Jamie and Jamie's fourth birthday goes off without a hitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Oh lord, how long has it been since I updated? I dunno, but I know it's much too long. I am extremely sorry about that. I thought life couldn't get any crazier. Well, I was wrong. Anyway, here is your long awaited update. I hope you like it.

Jamie became closed off after Bucky left. Steve couldn’t figure it out. The two-year-old had known his father for only a short amount of time, after all. The blonde thought his son would forget about it after a couple months. Even if Steve kept looking for Bucky, he hadn’t expected Jamie to ask so much about his missing father.

At every holiday and every birthday, Jamie asked if Bucky was coming. The little boy began talking only a fraction of the amount he had previously. It freaked Steve and the other Avengers out. There was a certain point when Steve went to Sam and asked him to try and talk to Jamie. The man pointed out that he was not equipped to counsel children, especially none as young as the small brunette, but he agreed.

It took two hours of stunted conversation before Jamie finally talked more openly with Sam. As openly as a three-year-old could, anyway. Jamie expressed just how upset he was about Bucky leaving. His Pappa had come back. His Pappa had made his Dadda so happy. His Pappa was everything that his Dadda had told him about since the day he was born. Sam had to admit that Jamie was extremely perceptive for a three-year-old child.

Jamie cried. A lot. He began to have meltdowns randomly in the middle of the day or at night. Sometimes he would climb out of his bed and run across the hall to Steve’s room. Other times he would sit and let himself cry in his room. Most of the time, though, someone would come and check on him. It was inevitable. Jarvis was good at his job.

Except for the nights when Steve and Jamie were back at their apartment. The apartment was different for Jamie. Steve noticed that the little boy didn’t act quite so secluded or upset when they stayed at the apartment.

The cause had dawned on Steve late one night when he couldn’t sleep and had gotten up to check on Jamie. Bucky had never been here. He hadn’t been in the apartment. Jamie didn’t associate Bucky with this place. As much as Steve greatly preferred to keep the toddler at the tower since there would always be someone to watch him, he began to keep Jamie away more often. Many of Jamie’s toys and clothes were moved to the apartment, leaving just enough at the tower so that the toddler could stay there for maybe a weekend, at most.

Steve could tell Jamie didn’t like that as much, but he would rather him feel comfortable in his home, rather than constantly miss what had once been there for him. It also occurred to Steve that Jamie’s emotions seemed to be developed far better than most other children at his age. And maybe that scared him just a little bit. There were just too many things that were just too abnormal about his son.

He figured that at some point he should get Jamie checked out. He should talk to Bruce or Fury or someone and ask to have them look at his son. Jamie wasn’t physically normal, seeing as almost anything that should severely injure him can hardly give the boy a scratch. Of course, Steve figured he should have seen that one coming, given that he himself had the serum in him. What didn’t make sense was that, despite being a child of the serum, Jamie still had an allergy, and who knew what else. Besides just his emotions seeming out of place, so was his process of thinking.

Steve wasn’t so sure about how to do this. He was sure that most parents didn’t have to deal with this. At least, not to this extent anyway.

“Clint…” Steve said, holding his phone close to his ear.

“What’s up, Steve?” Clint responded.

“What am I going to do about Jamie?” Steve asked. He sat on his bed, knees pulled up close to his chest. “I don’t know what to do. He seems to have the effects of the serum, but it’s like he’s missing parts of it. And he understands things the way a ten-year-old should, not a three-year-old.”

Jamie had gone to sleep half an hour ago. It was one of the rare nights when both he and Steve stayed at the tower, and one of the increasingly frequent times when Clint was not. It was only 8:30, which Steve counted as a success. It usually took Steve nearly forever to get Jamie to sleep this early when they stayed at the tower.

“Well, Cap… Before I say anything, you do realize I’m not certified for this, right?” Clint said. Steve nodded before remembering that the other man couldn’t see him.

“ I know.”

“Good. Well, I really have no answers here. You said it yourself, Steve. Jamie has the serum in him. But he doesn’t just have your DNA in him. Bucky’s is in there too. And he was… you know, normal, right?” Clint pointed out.

“Yeah, you’re ri-”

“Dadda!”

“I have to go, Clint. Jamie’s up.” Steve sighed.

Clint chuckled. “A father’s work is never done, is it?”

“Not even close.” Steve let out a breathy laugh, shaking his head slightly. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“See you, Steve.”

*

Jamie’s fourth birthday went well, seeming to prove a good deal of progress for the boy. He woke up and immediately decided he was going to hide until Steve came into his room that morning. It was increasingly often that the little boy woke up before his father ever checked on him. He slid open the door to his closet, pushing the door back into place behind him. There was no light in the small area, but Jamie didn’t care. He curled himself into the tiny nest he’d made. There was a pillow from Steve’s bed, a shirt from each of the Avengers, and a couple extra pillows and blankets from around the tower.

The little boy fell asleep there, his nose pressed into a blanket that Bucky had used while staying at the tower. Now, it hardly smelled of the alpha, but the feel of the soft fabric stilled Jamie’s fears for the time being as he lay curled away from the world.

Steve found the boy there later that morning, still sleeping. He almost left his son there for a moment, sure that if Jamie had wanted in here, it was for a good reason. Then he decided against it.

“Jamie baby, it’s time to get up.” Steve whispered, leaning down and nudging at the four-year-old’s shoulder.

Ice blue eyes opened to looked blearily up at the omega. Jamie’s arms reached up for his father, hands grabbing at the air. Steve laughed lightly at his son, reaching down and scooping him up out of the nest of pillows and blankets and stollen shirts. One he recognized as Tony’s favorite that the alpha had been looking for for months.

“Good morning, baby. You know what today is?” Steve asked, carrying Jamie out of the room and into the hallway.

“Nuh-uh.” Jamie yawned.

“It’s your birthday.” Steve said, a bright smile settling on his face.

“Birthday…” Jamie mumbled, rubbing an eye. “My birthday…”

“Yeah, kiddo. Your birthday. What do you want for breakfast?” Steve asked, setting Jamie down in one of the tall chairs at the kitchen island. The little brunette sat quietly for a moment, contemplating the question.

“Waffles… choc’late waffles!” Jamie said enthusiastically.

“You got it, babe.” Steve kissed his son’s head before gathering ingredients. Jamie sat still in his seat long enough to notice the forgotten coloring book and open box of crayons just out of reach. He stood up on the chair, leaning onto the island. He slid the coloring book closer, grabbing onto the crayons, and sat back in the seat.

Jamie was halfway through coloring a tiger purple with blue streaks on its face when Tony came into the room. It was only 9:43, and Steve counted that as an accomplishment for the shorter brunette.

“Uncle Tony!” Jamie called. Tony looked over at the boy, a smile appearing suddenly.

“Hey, soldier boy. What’re you doin’?” Tony said, coming closer to the island.

“It’s my birthday!” Jamie announced excitedly.

“What?” Tony said with fake astonishment. “No, it can’t be.”

“Why not?” Jamie asked. Steve turned to look at the other man as well.

“Because. Your birthday was last year.” Tony sent a wink at the blonde before looking back down at the child.

“Hey! No fair!” Jamie argued. Steve laughed and turned back to making the waffles.

“Well, I gotta go, kiddo. I’ll be back to see you later.” Tony ruffled Jamie’s hair, mussing the still uncombed waves. Jamie pushed some strands out of his face before turning back to his coloring.

“See you, Steve.” Tony said.

“You’ll be back for the party, won’t you?” Steve asked.

“Yeah. I’ve got a presentation for some people though. Won’t take too long.” Tony said, pulling his suit jacket on.

“Alright. Remember, if you’re late, Jamie will hold it against you for the rest of the year.”

Tony laughed. “Yeah, I know. Don’t worry.”

Steve supposed the day went fairly well. During breakfast, Jamie had gotten syrup and whipped cream all over his face (and hands and arms and… everything). Steve found the whole thing rather hilarious and took several pictures on his phone before hauling the little boy off for a bath. Jamie of course wanted a bubble bath and he wanted the bubbles to be blue. That resulted in more picture moments of giant bubble hats and long flowing blue beards. Afterwards, Steve dried off the boy, setting Jamie sort of loose in his room to dress himself. (The boy had started insisting he pick out his own outfit every morning. Steve was quite impressed when the clothes mostly matched.) Today’s outfit was a black Ironman long sleeve shirt and dark, blue jean shorts. One sock had purple and orange stripes on it and the other was white with black music notes. Steve decided to count this outfit as an almost success.

Brushing the child’s teeth came next before combing out the dark brunette waves that were in need of a cut. (Not a trim, a cut. The soft, wispy hair was brushing at Jamie’s shoulders. The only reason it hadn’t been cut yet was because Natasha enjoyed playing with it. And Jamie didn’t seem to mind it at all.)

When Steve felt Jamie was sufficiently ready for the day, the tiny four year old settled on the floor in the living room with his coloring book and crayons. Natasha had finally gotten up for the day and was sitting on the couch, keeping an eye on the child. Steve had taken the opportunity to get himself ready, sending a quick text to Nat.

Move Jamie to his room and keep him there. We’re going to start setting up the party.

Got it, Cap.

Within fifteen minutes, Sam, Clint, and Pepper were along to help. Soon, the entire living room and connected kitchen were covered in streamers and confetti, balloons covering most of the floor. Everything was basically a rainbow, given that Jamie couldn’t decide on a favorite color at the moment. One day it’s blue, next it’s red, and an hour later it’s orange. So the adults played it safe, buying packages of everything in every color. Steve had to admit that the purple balloons were actually the prettiest in his opinion. Presents were piled on the coffee table and the cake was kept safely hidden out of sight in the kitchen.

By noon, Nat had texted Steve, conveying Jamie’s plea of hunger. Steve had entered the bedroom, careful to block and sight of the living room as he did so.

“Daddy!” Jamie exclaimed, jumping up from the Hot Wheels race he’d been having with Natasha.

“Hey, sweetheart. Are you hungry?” Steve said, scooping Jamie up against his chest. The blue eyed boy smiled widely and nodded. “Alright. You have to close your eyes, okay?”

“Okay!” Jamie squeezed his eyes shut, placing his hands over them.

“Alright. No peaking.”

“Nu-uh.”

By the time Steve and Jamie were in the elevator, he’d had to dodge about a hundred different balloons just to avoid popping one. The blonde breathed a sigh of relief when the doors closed.

The two ate lunch at Jamie’s current favorite restaurant called the Sunshine Cafe. (Steve thought the decor was a little weird since there were lots of old string puppets hanging in the entrance area, but Jamie seemed fascinated by the little things.) To kill time, Steve took Jamie to the nearby park and watched him play or a while.

The park was full of other parents with their own children. Late May was a popular time to take the kids out right before school ends. Jamie was happy to play for as long as he was able, making plenty of new friends whose names he never learned. (Steve however was given a couple of numbers from the parents of the other kids. The parents all seemed to be friends and were happy to welcome a new family to the group.)

The two left for the tower around three when the party was supposed to start. Clint had finally texted him that Thor, Jane, Fury, Hill, and Tony were there.

Jamie was surprised when they got home. He hadn’t been able to see Thor, Jane, or Bruce in a long time, excitedly jumping up at the Asgardian and asking to be picked up. Everyone talked and cooed over the boy who’d grown so much in almost no time at all. They did presents and then came the cake. It was chocolate with a swirled rainbow of frosting, little mini figurines of all the Avengers topping it. In black lettering, it read “Happy 4th birthday, Jamie”. Jamie loved it.

Eventually, after getting his new toys splayed all over the room, hidden among balloons and wrapping paper, Jamie yawned, nearly curled up in his father’s side on the couch.

Everyone offered to start cleaning up while Steve took Jamie to change the boy into the new puppy pajamas that Thor had gotten him. That was okay. What wasn’t okay was the Jamie didn’t agree to going to bed in his own room. He wanted to sleep with Steve.

So Steve tucked the little kid into the large bed in his room. In two seconds flat, Jamie was asleep.

Back in the living room, everyone was hard at work putting Avengers tower back to the way it was supposed to be.

“Get him down?” Clint asked.

“Oh yeah. He’s out.” Steve responded, smiling playfully at his friends.

“Thank you all for helping pull this off.”

“Do not worry about it, friend.” Thor said, clapping Steve on the shoulder.

“Yeah. Now, go get your star spangled ass in bed with your son. We’ll take care of this.” Tony said.

“Language, Tony.” Steve scolded with a grin.

“What? Kid’s asleep down the hall, he won’t hear me!” Tony defended.

Steve just laughed and headed off back to his room. He knew there wasn’t much point in arguing with Tony. Besides, Steve was not about to pass up the opportunity for extra sleep. Not when he had a son that sapped most of his energy during the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and sticking with me through this. Obviously, we're not nearly done yet, so please send me some good vibes! I do apologize for how lacking in plot this chapter is. :( Anyway, thanks again and let me know what you think! :)


	10. No One Really Knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is trying to figure himself and everything else out. But at the same time, everyone's accusing him of killing more people. Jamie hears about it even though he's not supposed to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I am so sorry. I know I posted something earlier today about this new chapter. I want to apologize on every level that I possibly can for leaving this story for so long. I kept thinking about it all the time, but I had no idea how to come back to it. For those of you who aren't too mad, thank you. And for those of you who are mad but are still here to read, thank you and I hope you can forgive me. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. I think it feels a little choppy, but in my defense, I'm working with canon divergence and not owning Civil War (I tried to re watch it, I did). So, yeah :) :/

Bucky wanted Jamie to be safe. He wanted Steve to be safe too. But, he was worried. He hadn’t known anything about himself while at the Tower. The only reason he’d been there at all was because Steve’s scent was… it was familiar, like it was ingrained in his subconscious. Like it was so integral to who he was that even the memory wiping and cryo freezing couldn’t make him forget it.

He had to leave. He had to figure out who he was, find himself, relearn the world. Jamie had gotten hurt on his watch, and he had to make up for that.

No… he’d never make up for that, but still… Bucky had to do something.

And that was how he found himself away in a different country, countless notebooks kept stuffed in a bag of memories that popped up from time to time. Bucky had learned quickly that if he didn’t write them down almost immediately after remembering them, he wouldn’t keep them. The first time he had remembered Steve’s birthday, he hadn’t written it down and it had taken him months to remember again.

But… But as an alpha and a father, Bucky couldn’t just carry around notebooks all the time to remember something about his mate (?) and child. Was Steve his mate? He hadn’t remembered that yet… Or… he had but he’d forgotten.

Bucky remembered… he remembered a little guy. A blonde little fellow who got sick at the drop of a hat, with blue eyes the color of the summer sky. A person who filled his chest with warmth and flooded his mind with pictures of soft smiles and split lips and bloody noses. Could that little omega who got into too many fights (?) really be Steve? What happened to him? And what about Jamie?

Jamie was his son. He felt it, deep in his chest. Felt a connection to the small brunette like he didn’t understand.

Bucky knew a rough estimate of how long he had been the Winter Soldier. So he knew when he would have last been Bucky Barnes. And there is no way Jamie could have been born or conceived all the way back then, could he have?

There were too many questions that he couldn’t answer on his own.

But what could he do?

*

Bucky’s birthday came and went (that was one of the first things he wrote down), and he knew that in just a couple months, Jamie would turn four. (Four, right?) But he couldn’t go back. He knew that. He didn’t want to miss his son’s birthday, but it was still too soon. (Was it?)

Sometimes Bucky wished he could make his mind shut up. For the past nine months it had been louder than it ever had been as the Asset, and it drove him up the wall sometimes. Especially when it made him second guess himself. Yes, he knew his name was James Buchanan Barnes and people called him Bucky for short. Yes, he was mated to Steven Grant Rogers and it was killing him to be away from the omega. Yes, he had a son named Jamie David Rogers. But sometimes… he forgot and his mind played tricks.

That’s what the notebooks were for.

He hoped that maybe one day, he wouldn’t need them. But right now, it was too much of a risk to go back and hurt them again. What if he tried to give something with peanuts in it to Jamie? What if someone found that little red book? What if, what if, what if…

Bucky couldn’t handle it.

*

Bucky knew why Steve was here. He’d seen the reports on the incident.

Some important place in Vienna was blown up. Lots of people signing some treaty or another. Bucky hadn’t really paid it any attention. Or, at least not until he realized they were blaming him for the bombing.

When Steve turned around, he didn’t know what to say. Was he the one who was supposed to say something? He wasn’t having a good memory day. He was having trouble reconciling this Steve with the little guy from his memory.

Should he defend himself?

“Do you know me?” Steve finally asks.

“You’re Steve.” Bucky answers immediately. “I read about you at the museum.” He didn’t say he remembered his asthma, his coughing that sounded like he might die any second, his smile that brightened the freezing hell-hole apartment they lived in back in Brooklyn.

“I know you’re nervous, and you have plenty of reason to be. But you’re lying.” Steve accused.

Bucky figured now would be the best time to defend himself. “I wasn’t in Vienna. I don’t do that anymore.”

Steve should know that, shouldn’t he? SHIELD took down Hydra, didn’t they? Steve helped. He knew Bucky wouldn’t do something like this… he didn’t want to…

“Well, the people who think you did are coming here now, and they’re not planning on taking you alive.” Steve said.

Bucky knew he wasn’t supposed to be scared. He knew that his mate (?) shouldn’t scare him, but… 

“That’s smart. Good strategy.” Bucky quipped. (Yes, good, hide the pain.)

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.”

“It always ends in a fight.”

Always. No matter what happened, he would never be cleared. No one would trust him. Why would they? Even if they did take down Hydra, that didn’t change Bucky. What if his programming still worked? What if it was activated? What then?

“You left us. Why?” Steve demanded.

“I don’t know.” (To save you.)

“Yes, you do.”

The world went to hell after that. There was a huge chase (that they definitely didn’t win). And then they were on their way to SHIELD headquarters. (Or wherever it was they wanted to hold you until they could charge you and have you executed.)

(What if Jamie hears about this? What now, genius?)

Bucky really just wanted himself to shut up. (Is that possible?)

Some doctor (doubt that) came in to talk to him. But, he lied. He wasn’t a doctor. He pulled out the red book (not that again) and reprogrammed him again.

(It hurt.) Just like always.

*

The next thing Bucky knew, he was in some warehouse with his left arm pinned in some industrial clamp thing. He couldn’t move much. Steve and Sam were standing in front of him in the room.

“Which Bucky am I talking to?” Steve asked, not a hint of emotion in his voice.

“Your mom’s name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes…” Bucky smiled at the memory fondly.

He wished he could write it down. What if he forgot it?

*

Jamie was not at the Tower.

Jamie was told not to watch TV. That’s what Daddy said before he left, that he wasn’t allowed to watch the TV.

But Wanda was watching it…

“Can I watch with you?” he asked Wanda, standing shyly in the doorway of the woman’s room.

She turned around quickly, probably not having expected him to be there.

“Sure.”

Jamie smiled as he joined her on her bed. He really liked her accent. He liked Vision’s too. They sounded nice… different. Vision sounds the way Jarvis did.

Jamie never was told why Jarvis went away.

“What are you watching?” Jamie asked, hugging his lovey to his chest. It was a bear in a blue and red suit. It looked old, but that was why Jamie liked it so much. It wasn’t like all the other stuffed bears in the stores. They all looked the same and were boring. This one… he’s the kind you name and hold on to.

“Oh, just the news.” Wanda said.

“What about?”

“There was an accident a little bit ago. Somebody bombed a building.”

That was another thing Jamie liked about Wanda. She told him the truth when he asked. Sometimes the adults liked to sugar coat things for him, but he knew he could handle it. He understood he was more mature than regular four year olds. But this was normal for him. Jamie… Jamie understood, but he wasn’t sure how or why.

“Why?”

“They’re signing the Accords, and some people don’t like that.”

“Like Daddy?”

Wanda paused. Now the subject was getting touchy.

“Yes… Like your daddy…”

The anchorman’s voice spoke up now saying something. “The bomber is believed to be James Barnes, a former Hydra agent. Our sources say that Special Forces from SHIELD are on their way to detain Barnes presently.”

Jamie knew that name. James Barnes was his Papa’s given name… The name his mommy called him before everyone called him Bucky. Daddy had told him that.

Wanda seemed to have noticed as well.

“Jamie… let’s go play a game. What would you like to play?” The brunette woman stood suddenly from the bed and turned off the television, turning back to the small child still seated on the bed.

Jamie shrugged. Would his papa really do something like that? He had been gone so long… Was he doing bad things again?

“Let’s find Vision and… and we can all play with your dolls, yes?” Wanda forced a smile on her face for the sake of the boy. She reached out and picked him up, easily settling him on her hip before they left the room.

Jamie wasn’t sure he wanted to play dolls. But Jamie didn’t want to tell Wanda no either…

He wanted his daddy and papa…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I really hope you liked it, and I hope that it can start to make up for the long hiatus. As usual, let me know what you think, and please tell me if you found any grammar mistakes. I will begin working on the next chapter here in the next like... hour, probably. Anyway, thanks again! :D


	11. What Now?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie refuses to go to bed, and when Tony shows up to take him way on a "field trip", Jamie runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I still hope you liked the last chapter I posted yesterday. So far, there hasn't been a whole lot of feedback on it, but you know. Anyway, here's this chapter. I'm really happy with how fast it got done. (Also, on Google Docs, this file is now 50 pages long (I had not planned for this????!!!!!)) So, anyway. I hope you like this new chapter!

Vision and Wanda had finally gotten Jamie into bed by 9:45 that night. It wasn’t easy. While he wasn’t fussy or screaming and crying or anything of the like, he just refused to actually get into bed. He dressed himself in a pair of pajamas that had cute little purple and green puppies all over them, but after that, he crawled up onto the couch and stayed there, staring at the wall.

Vision had picked the boy up, carried him into his bedroom, tucked him in under the covers of the giant bed he was staying in, and left. Three minutes later, he was back on the couch.

Wanda tried that time, sitting down on the bed next to Jamie to tell him a story. It wasn’t the best, and most of it was made up and had no basis in any real bedtime story, but it was a story nonetheless.

And again, Jamie was up and climbing onto the couch.

Vision wasn’t sure what to do. Should he talk to the boy, or just put him back in bed? Had they not played enough? Or maybe he was hungry…

“Jamie, are you tired?” Vision asked, crouching down next to the couch.

Jamie nodded his head, arms tightening around his lovey. His dark little eyebrows were pulled low over his icy blue eyes, a frown on his lips. He didn’t yawn, his eyes didn’t droop, nothing. Really, the four year old just looked angry.

“Then why won’t you stay in bed?”

“Gotta wait.”

“For what?”

“Daddy and Papa.”

Vision looked over his shoulder at Wanda then. What should they do? The woman shrugged at him.

“Well, Jamie, your daddy and papa won’t be back for a while-”

The elevator doors opened suddenly.

All three looked over at them curiously as Tony Stark strode into the room, a mildly annoyed look on his face.

“Vision, Wanda, where’s Jamie?” Tony asked. He didn’t see the little brunette sitting on the couch.

“Right here.” Vision replied casually, straightening up.

The four year old turned and stood up, leaning against the back of the couch.

“Uncle Tony!” Jamie exclaimed. He didn’t have his usual excitement, but at the very least, he didn’t seem mad anymore.

“Hey, soldier boy.” Tony said, features shifting into happiness. The man walked briskly over to the couch, reached down, and lifted Jamie high into the air. The boy giggled, dropping his bear, eyes squeezed shut.

Tony brought Jamie down to settle against his chest. “You got a bag of stuff here?”

Jamie nodded, beginning to look down towards the floor for his bear.

“Alright. Let’s get it. We’re going to take a field trip.” The man set Jamie down on the floor. The small brunette immediately picked up his lovey and rushed out of the room.

“Tony…” Vision said. “Why are you taking Jamie?”

“I’m moving him somewhere safe.” Tony said. “Steve won’t come looking for him here, or at all anyway. He knows it’s not safe for a child to be running around with all the conflict going on. But I’m not so sure about anyone else. That kid is well known as Captain America’s son.”

“Did Steve ask you to do this?” Wanda asked.

Tony paused. “No. But-”

“He’s not your son, Tony. What happens when all this dies down and Steve comes looking for him?”

“What if it doesn’t die down?” Tony demands. Any sign of his previous happiness displayed in front of Jamie was gone. “What if this turns into a war and we’re all caught on opposing sides? What if Jamie gets caught in the middle of it? What then? And Steve’s judgement is clearly impaired at the moment! I’ve been informed that he, Barnes, and Wilson have been caught and taken back for holding and questioning. Steve went after Barnes without anyone’s consent and was trying to help him escape from the police.”

Wanda was silent.

“Jamie can’t stay here. Besides… the good ol’ captain never asked for Jamie to be brought here anyway.”

Jamie stood in the hallway, his bag of clothes and toys settled on the floor next to him. Daddy was… doing something bad? Daddy was helping Papa run away? Papa really did do something bad?

Next to his feet, in one of the side pockets of the bag, two of his dolls stuck out. The omega and alpha males… He picked them up and stared at them. Were his daddies… in trouble?

Suddenly, the dolls were flying through the air and colliding with the opposite wall. Plastic cracked against the hard surface, pieces falling to the floor and laying scattered.

Jamie stared at them in shock. Had he done that? Had he just broken his dolls?

“Jamie?” a voice called from the room.

Jamie turned and ran down the hallway, one of his bear’s arms clutched tightly in his fist. Jamie knew where the stairs were. He had been here before and Daddy always made sure Jamie knew how to get around on his own. Because maybe one day, Jamie would have to run away but no one would be around to get him out.

Was this one of the times his daddy had talked about?

Jamie decided that it was.

He ran as fast as he could, hoping that the others wouldn’t catch him.

At the bottom of the stairs, there was a door with a red and white sign on it. He recognized the letters printed across it, E M E R G E N C Y E X I T, but he didn’t know what it meant. Jamie pushed it open and ran again.

Alarms went off inside the building, lights flashing. The fire alarm. Daddy had told Jamie that if he ever heard that alarm, he was supposed to get out of the building as fast as possible and get to the Safe Spot. The Safe Spot was just past the tree line on the other side of the gravel road. He was supposed to wait at the Safe Spot for Daddy and then he would be safe.

If he got there, would Daddy still come?

How far in the woods was he supposed to go?

The boy ran hard and ran fast, breaking past the trees, still going. His feet hurt from stepping on twigs and branches, little rocks that stung. But that was okay. Jamie knew he wasn’t hurt. Things that like didn’t hurt him. He remembered being thrown off a bridge with Daddy and he was only scraped. That was right before he met Papa for the first time.

If he just kept running… where would he find himself?

Would he be lost?

*

“Lost?! What do you mean ‘lost’?! How could you lose him?” Steve roared.

The last thing Tony had wanted to do was tell Steve about his missing child. Especially not when he still needed to find a way to get the man to sign the Accords. But now… maybe there had been a slim chance before, but now, there was no way. Tony had lost Steve’s only child, his only son, all but his only connection to his mate.

What had Tony done?

“What now, Tony?! He’s four years old! He’s lost in New York City! He’s-”

“Actually,” Tony interrupted. “ He’s not in New York.”

Steve rounded on him. “What? Then where is he?”

“He’s… somewhere in the woods surrounding the base…”

“You mean to tell me that not only did he run away and is now lost, but he is lost in the woods around the base that you moved him to without my permission?” Steve asked, tone deadly and words slow and emphasized.

Tony didn’t respond. He was digging this hole deeper for himself, he knew it. He could feel it.

“Jesus Christ- Tony! What have you done?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! If you have any questions, comments, concerns, snide remarks, etc., please feel free to leave them as a comment or even go find my email address on my profile and send me an email and I will get back to you ASAP. I really hope you liked this new installment, and the next one will be up soon! Thanks!


	12. Deserve Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Sam, and Bucky continue running. Steve wishes he had done something different. Bucky's thoughts continue to plague him. Sharon agrees to look for Jamie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I hope you all like this chapter! There were a few times where I almost ended it but decided it wasn't quite right yet and needed something else.
> 
> Also, I will say this in the end notes as well, but if there are any little things that you want to see from this AU, please let me know! I would like some prompts! Once this specific story is done, I do want to write more for this verse, so if you guys could think about what you would like to see, please leave a comment about it or find my email address on my profile and shoot me an email! Thanks!

Steve hated that he didn’t have the time to look for Jamie. He hated that this whole thing was turning the Avengers against each other. He hated that he was so angry at Tony. He hated that sometimes, Bucky didn’t know who he was. He hated that Bucky and Sam couldn’t get along. He hated that he had to drag Sharon into all this, and he hated that his baby knew everything that had happened, but not from him.

He hated that what Jamie knew of the situation had come from Tony. Tony didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. That he knew, but the point was that Steve and Tony were on completely opposing sides at the moment. Tony was angry.

But so was Steve.

How could he be a good father like this? Why hadn’t he thought about this when he was pregnant with Jamie?

He knew! He knew something bad could happen! He knew something (everything) could go wrong!

Although, in all fairness, he hadn’t quite expected the complete shit show this had turned out to be.

But that didn’t matter. He should have known better! He could have done better for Jamie. He could have given up Captain America, let him die the way everyone had thought he had all those decades ago. He could have taken his son and lived in a nice little apartment and gotten a job down at the corner store the way he’d always wanted to back in the day. Jamie could have grown up happy, never knowing the fighting, the terror, the loneliness that came with being close to a superhero.

Steve would have been there for Jamie’s first word. He would have been there the moment Jamie started to have a reaction to peanut butter. Jamie would never have had to know the heartbreak of seeing his supposedly dead father and then be all but abandoned by him less than a year later. Jamie wouldn’t be missing now. He wouldn’t…

Steve didn’t know exactly. There were so many different ways life could have turned out if he had just… done something different.

Anything different.

“Steve…” Bucky said quietly from the back seat of the cramped car. Sam had refused to move his seat up and Bucky, instead of starting a fight, moved to the middle.

“Hm?” Steve hummed. He wasn’t sure he could talk at the moment.

“Where’s Jamie?”

Steve almost, nearly, slammed the brakes.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want Bucky to ask. Actually, he had wanted it more than anything. He wanted Bucky to remember Jamie on his own and show that he cared.

But… maybe he was mad… Maybe he was hurt.

“I… uh,” Steve started, taking a deep breath and keeping his foot gently against the gas. “I’m not sure…”

The silence in the car was uncomfortable, to say the least.

Sam was looking at him like he had grown at second head. “Wait a minute. We left him at the Tower with Pepper.”

Steve sighed. “I know we did. But it seems that Tony moved him to the base, just in case. He had figured that if anyone went for Avengers Tower, it could put Jamie in danger.”

“Okay, then, he’s at the base, right?” Sam clarified.

“He’s… somewhere… around the base…”

Steve honestly thought someone was going to reach over and slam the brakes on for him.

“Tony went to move him again after we were caught. But Jamie heard him talking and they think he just freaked and ran off…” Steve said. His tone hinted at tears, at desperation. It screamed that he would like nothing better than to drop everything and go and find his baby boy.

Bucky nearly growled in the back seat. Steve hadn’t realized how strong the pheromones in the car had gotten. Even Sam, as a beta, was sniffy the air slightly, eyebrows furrowing at the scent of unhappy omega. It was hard for people to recognize their own scent when they’re covered in it regularly. But there was nothing to cut through it. The car smelled of nothing in particular, Sam’s beta scent was clean and fresh, though vaguely unrecognizable, and Bucky must have been on scent blockers again. Steve blushed at the realization.

“I want to find him… before you say anything,” Steve said, voice so low, Bucky and Sam almost didn’t hear him. “But… we’re fugitives… If we go to find him, they’ll catch us again, or maybe we’d get him and get away successfully, but what then? We’d be on the run with a four year old, probably dressed in pajamas, probably hasn’t eaten anything in at least twelve hours, and probably hasn’t slept either…”

It was silent.

“Steve, your dad is showing.” Bucky said, tone light, trying to break the tension.

It almost worked.

*

Jamie wasn’t sure where he was anymore. He’d had to stop running, but he couldn’t hear the alarms. The trees around him were dark, and he could see little twinkling stars through the leaves above him.

One of the trees was big, like the Hulk. Jamie sat down against it, curling into the twisting roots that disappeared into the ground.

He was cold. He could feel a stick stuck in his hair. He had to pee.

Jamie wanted to go home.

*

“He’s gotta be so scared, Sharon.” Steve said to the blonde standing before him. He knew that they didn’t really have time for this, but there wasn’t much choice. She was one of the few who had the means and the freedom to go and look for his little boy.

“Don’t worry. I’ll find him.” Sharon assured him. She leaned and kissed Steve on the cheek before turning away and getting back into her car as Steve did the same.

There was a tension in the car he didn’t want to ask about.

Jamie knows Sharon. She had babysat him plenty while they lived in the apartment. He would trust her.

“She kissed you.” Sam said.

“On the cheek.” Steve countered.

“Still-”

“She’s going to find Jamie, alright?” Steve bit out.

“Okay, okay.” Sam said, a teasing grin plastered across his face. “Just saying, another alpha kissed you on the cheek while your’s was sitting in the car in plain sight.”

Steve didn’t say anything. He figured it would be better that way.

When he turned to watch as he backed the car up, Bucky had a carefully schooled look on his face.

Steve wasn’t sure what to make of that.

*

Jamie jerked awake at the loud crashing noise and hurried footsteps. They were getting closer.

The small brunette stood and took off again, low bushes and plants slapping at his face and arms. The leaves on the ground make it a little more comfortable to run without his shoes on, but it didn’t make much of a difference. Jamie didn’t care. He cared that he was getting away.

He couldn’t remember why he had to get away, but he knew it was right.

Daddy would find him soon. Then he would be safe.

Daddy was in trouble.

Daddy was good.

Uncle Tony had said he wasn’t.

Somebody lied.

*

Bucky didn’t know what to do or say. Did he comfort Steve? (Or do you take a step back?) Did he ask about Jamie again? (Or do you keep your distance?) Did he voice his thoughts? (Or do you keep them to yourself?) Was he allowed to do any of this? (Or do you just go with it the way Steve wants you to?)

Shut up. (Make me.)

Bucky just wanted to beat his head against a wall.

He knew he wasn’t worth all of this. Steve was losing his friends, his family, over Bucky, and that was unacceptable.

Bucky had done terrible things. (You’re damn right.) If anyone found out the extent of them… what would happen? Would he go to prison? Would he be set free? Would he be wiped again? (Please, anything but that.)

“Would you shut up?!” Bucky groaned.

It took him just about two nanoseconds to realize he had said that out loud.

“Uh, sorry?” Sam countered, snark the only thing present in his tone.

“I didn’t mean…” Bucky started before he shook his head and walked away. Steve was off talking to someone, leaving Sam and Bucky together.

“Barnes.” Sam said. Bucky stopped. “Look, I know we don’t get along well, but… Listen, are you okay?”

Bucky scoffed at him. “Okay? Me? I’m just fine! I can hardly remember who I’m supposed to be, whoever Steve wants me to be, and I remember two different versions of Steve, and sometimes, I can’t tell if one of them is fake or not. My son, who I hardly know, is missing, and I know it’s tearing my mate apart. And, strangely, it’s tearing me apart too! I care! I do! I want the best for them, and that’s why I left in the first place! I had to figure out everything I don’t know and can’t remember. But I was doing better there for a little while, and then suddenly I’m being framed for blowing up a building with very important people in it! My notebooks are gone, and I keep remembering things that I’ll forget in five minutes if I don’t write them down and I feel like I’m slowly losing all the progress I have been trying to make! Yeah! I’m peachy keen!”

It took longer that time to realize he had just said all that to Sam Wilson.

“I’m sorry-”

“No, I am.” Sam said, effectively cutting Bucky off. “I have no right to treat you the way I have been. I’m mad, and I suppose I’m entitled to that, but you deserve better than my anger thrown at you all the time.”

(No you don’t. You deserve every harsh word, every brick wall, every lashing tongue. You don’t deserve any better than what you had with Hydra.)

Bucky didn’t say anything. He didn’t know who was right… 

*

Jamie cried.

He sat and wailed at the trees around him.

He didn’t want to run anymore.

He wanted his Daddy to come and get him already.

He was tired.

He still had to pee.

He was hungry.

And the footsteps were getting closer.

Suddenly there were people breaking through the dense trees into Jamie’s blurry sight. He knew one of them. Her name was Sharon. She was pretty and reminded him of Aunt Peggy, even though she had been old and sick in bed a lot. Her hair was blonde and soft, kind of like the big doggies Daddy let him ask to pet at the park.

Jamie cried harder, reaching up at her.

Sharon shushed him as she picked him up and settled him against her hip.

He didn’t pay attention to what she was saying.

“I want Daddy!” He cried at her.

“I know you do, sweetheart, but we gotta get you home first. Yeah? That sound good? You wanna go home?” Sharon cooed at him.

Jamie nodded, fist rubbing at one wet eye.

“Alright, yeah, let’s go home.”

Jamie fell asleep as the team of agents walked with Sharon back the way they had come. It was a surprising amount of forest Jamie had run through before giving in. Sharon wondered about it silently as they walked.

How had a four year old run over ten miles through the woods in just over fourteen hours?

Once back at the base, Sharon loaded Jamie into a car seat in the back of her car and elected to drive him back to New York City. She still had a spare key to the Rogers’ apartment. She could care for Jamie until everything blew over. On her way back home, she pulled out her phone, calling Steve quickly.

“Sharon?” Steve answered.

“I’ve got him.” Sharon said.

“Thank you.”

The line went dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! I hope you liked it! If you found any grammar mistakes, let me know so that I can fix them!
> 
> Like I said before, if you have prompts, ideas, interests, or just little things you would like to see from this verse, please leave a comment about it or send me an email. I will reply to all of them. I want to write more, and I want to give you guys what you want to see, so don't be shy! :D You can find my email address on my profile or, I will leave it right here for you to copy and paste.
> 
> robinplaystrumpet15@gmail.com


	13. All Kinds of Lost, Not Really Ready

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fight at the airport. Bucky finally says something to Steve about the thoughts twisting through his head. They're all just trying to do what they think is right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! So... this chapter is not... happy... It's actually kind of dark, and I won't say I'm sorry for that. I know that this story has some lower themes anyway, definitely not upbeat and happy, but still. We're starting to sink a little as we near the end of the Civil War story line. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter! (BTW, this document is now 68 pages long. O.o)

This could have gone a lot better.

It could have ended a lot better.

Though… it probably could have started a lot better, too.

Tony wanted to do the right thing. People were dying… people had been killed. Of course, this wasn’t new information. He had known people died. In the battle against Loki and his Chitauri, people’s lives, homes, and businesses were lost. Mothers and fathers would never come home to their kids, children were buried by their parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins never to come home again for a reunion.

And the same thing happened later, as well. Ultron had been a big problem. One that was blown over in the United States, but not in other countries. When the Winter Soldier resurfaced, countless innocent bystanders lost their lives.

What was Tony supposed to do? What was he supposed to tell a grieving family, one that had lost a son to the actions of the Avengers? A son who was just eighteen years old, a bright future ahead of him, a brighter smile on his face, and would never come home to his family, his younger siblings. He wouldn’t tell them exciting stories from other countries, or tuck his brother and sister into bed at night, or tell his mother he loved her every morning, or help his uncle with picking out names for his soon to be born baby cousin.

Something had to be done.

Maybe Steve was right. You try to do the right thing and save the most amount of lives, even if that doesn’t mean saving everyone.

But maybe… Tony just wanted to try and save himself. Tony didn’t want the grief of these parents, of these loved ones. He didn’t want to think about what all these people could have done with the time that was stolen from them. Would they have changed the world? Or would they have changed it for one little kid? Would they have died happy? Or would they still have befallen some sort of tragedy? Would they have lived to cure cancer? Become a parent? A grandparent? An aunt or uncle?

How much time had been taken from these people?

Tony knew a thing or two about time. Such as, a day isn’t actually twenty four hours long. It is twenty three hours, fifty six minutes, and four point two seconds long. While people say “time flies when you’re having fun”, a study shows that most people will actually attest that time seemed to slow down when they were experiencing something they enjoyed, such as listening to music. And, a theory of relativity suggests that the universe will continue to expand indefinitely, but some theoretical physicists predict that time will end in the next four billion years.

But one thing Tony knew for sure is that you can do a lot with almost no time at all. You can wake up, get dressed, eat “breakfast”, and get to a meeting all in the span of ten minutes. You can save the world in about half an hour. You can create a new element in a few days if you have the means.

And life can end in the time it takes you to blink.

Funny how that works.

If you think about it, some of the biggest things in life either take a long time, or almost no time. For an omega to get pregnant, carry a baby, and then give birth, it takes about nine months. That’s the majority of the year. To die, depending on the circumstances, can take the snap of your fingers, the blink of your eye, one breath, and then suddenly… nothing.

That’s it. Over. Done. Nothing else.

You are finished living at that point.

You could have been shot, you could have been old, you could have had a heart attack, you could have been in some natural disaster or a house fire. You could have been tortured, asthmatic, sick, stabbed, strangled, drowned. There are most likely an infinite number of ways that a person could die, if you look at specifics.

But these people.

These people lost their lives because the Avengers failed to do what they had set out to do. They failed to save them. Their deaths could have been prevented. Or maybe, they might have been. If the Avengers hadn’t been there, how many would have died? How many would have survived? Would it be more or less? Did they save someone who wouldn’t have lived if they hadn’t been there? Did someone die who could have lived?

These were the thoughts that plagued Tony almost constantly, night and day. He thought about them as he intercepted Steve at the airport and incapacitated the helicopter. Tony let nothing show as he said something remarkably sarcastic.

“Wow, it’s so weird how you run into people at the airport.” His helmet came away from his face, storing into the back of his suit as he looked at Rhodey beside him. “Don’t you feel weird?”

“Definitely weird.”

“Hear me out, Tony.” Steve starts. “That doctor, the psychiatrist, he’s behind all of this.”

T’Challa came in then, exchanging a greeting with the suited up omega. Sometimes Tony forgot this guy was an omega and had a little boy running around out there somewhere. Or… maybe forgot was the wrong word. But sometimes it just sort of dawned on him, even though he watched the captain during his pregnancy, went through some of the ups and downs of parenting a small child with him. It hadn’t just been Tony, but he had been there. He had helped. He and Steve had grown closer, he felt. So what was all of this?!

“Anyway, Ross gave me thirty six hours to bring you in. That was twenty four hours ago. Can you help a brother out?” Tony said.

“You’re after the wrong guy.”

“Your judgement is askew. Your mate killed innocent people yesterday.”

“And there are five more super soldiers just like him. I can’t let the doctor find them first, Tony. I can’t.”

“Steve,” Natasha spoke up. “You know what’s about to happen. Do you really want to punch your way out of this one?”

“Alright, I’ve run out of patience.” Tony sighed. “Underoos!”

Out of seemingly nowhere, Peter flew into view, snagging Steve’s shield away from him and landing in the “superhero landing”.

“Nice job, kid.”

God, he hoped this didn’t end badly for him. Peter Parker was just a kid. How much time could be taken from him today? What could he do once he graduated from high school and went off to college and the like? What could he do as Spiderman? How many people would he save? How much time?

Tony wanted to slap himself. This was not the time for this.

“You’ve been busy.” Steve snarked at him.

“And you’ve been a complete idiot. Dragging in Clint. Rescuing Wanda from a place she doesn’t even want to leave. A safe place. I’m trying to keep…” Tony had to take a breath. “ I’m trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart.”

“You did that when you signed.”

Tony nearly saw red.

*

Bucky was a little lost. (Oh yeah, genius? What else is new?)

He didn’t recognize some of these people. Especially not the tiny one in red and blue who talked with the voice of a young teenager and blocked a punch from Bucky’s metal arm like it was nothing. This was a kid?! Why the hell was he here, fighting this fight?! Last Bucky checked (which was a while ago, granted), this little boy had not been a part of the Avengers. Steve had never mentioned anything about him, and their interaction a few minutes ago showed no signs of having met before at all.

Which meant… which meant Tony had been out looking for people to help his side.

Bucky really didn’t think he was worth all this. Wouldn’t it just be easier for Steve to let Tony take Bucky back and do what he needed to prove everything was a huge misunderstanding? Or at the very least, prove that the stuff about Bucky was a misunderstanding? The other stuff, the running from the police and everything, that had to be taken care of, yes. But…

The scary cat guy was back and attacking him again. His name was escaping him at the moment, not having been able to write it down, but Bucky knew the man thought he was responsible for killing his father.

“I didn’t kill your father.” Bucky groaned out. At least he could say he tried to talk.

“Then why did you run?”

Because you were trying to kill me?!

Bucky really just felt all kinds of lost.

*

Steve was tired. He had to do this. He had to do this to save Bucky, to prove something to Tony. He had to do this. Not for himself. Never for himself. He wanted Bucky back, yes, but doing this was not going to fix the stuff the alpha dealt with. He wanted to show Tony that bad things happened. In war, casualties are expected. They’re sad, and they hurt, but that’s what happens. You lose people. Innocent people. And that was awful…

But what else can you do?

And maybe… maybe he was doing this for Jamie, too. To prove to his baby that his father was not wrong. To show him that sometimes, you have to do what is right, even if it’s not easy or the accepted thing. Even if people tell you you’re wrong. Some of the best things in the world have been caused by someone doing something that was considered wrong, and later proved to be right. He wanted to bring Bucky back to their son. He wanted them to be a family. He wanted to live with them, watch Jamie grow up and live and learn and love and grow and do everything that Steve has only ever dreamed of for his baby.

Jamie deserved that.

Jamie deserved better than what Steve had given him thus far.

“I’m gonna draw all the fliers. I’ll take Vision. You get to the jet.” Steve instructed over the coms.

“No, you get to the jet!” Sam argued. “Both of you! The rest of us aren’t getting out of here.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, if we’re gonna win this one, some of us might have to lose it.” Clint said.

“This isn’t the real fight, Steve.”

“Alright, Sam. What’s the plan?”

“We need a diversion. Something big.”

And something big it was, Steve could attest to that. Scott grew to the size of a building and kept the others busy as Steve made towards the correct hanger with Bucky at his side. Part of the building was hit, beginning to fall and nearly crushing both of them. They barely made it inside.

Natasha was waiting for them.

“You’re not going to stop?”

“You know I can’t.”

“I’m going to regret this.” She said, listing her arm and firing at something behind them. Her wrist gauntlet hit T’Challa as he came up behind them. “Go.”

Steve and Bucky made it onto the jet, able to take off and try and outrun the fight.

Tony and Rhodey were on them in no time, Sam right behind them. Steve didn’t see what happened as Vision’s ray grazed against the front of Rhodey’s suit and he fell back to earth. He did know that both Tony and Sam peeled off and tried to catch him before he hit the ground.

They were in the clear.

So why didn’t he feel better?

*

Bucky had to say something…

It was going to kill him if he didn’t.

“What’s gonna happen to your friends?” he said suddenly. Bucky had fought to make himself say the words, had gotten close a couple of times before backing off. How would Steve react?

“Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it.”

That was not really the answer Bucky had been looking for.

“I don’t know if I’m worth all this, Steve.” Bucky said quietly. Silently, Bucky waited for his mind to say something stupid and self deprecating. Nothing came.

Steve was silent for a moment.

“What you did all those years… it wasn’t you. You didn’t have a choice.”

“I know…” Bucky said. “But I did it.”

And maybe he needed to pay the price for it.

*

Sharon hadn’t heard anything. Not since leaving Steve, Bucky, and Sam to head to the base and finding Jamie.

She’d gotten them both back to New York safely, no one from SHIELD currently aware of the child’s whereabouts, except that he was no longer lost or in danger. That was fine. It was better this way. Jamie could stay as neutral territory. Tony couldn’t use him as leverage over Steve, and Steve wouldn’t have to worry about his son’s safety.

Not that Sharon thought Tony would use Jamie against Steve anyway, but still. SHIELD couldn’t do it either.

Once home, she had let them into Steve’s apartment and woken Jamie up long enough to bathe him and find him a clean pair of pajamas. Vaguely, she hoped the pair he had been wearing weren’t one of his favorites. They were stained and torn. Completely unwearable.

Jamie snuggled happily into his father’s bed, looking even smaller than usual on the full mattress, covered by a neatly tucked comforter.

Sharon smiled. She really could see the both of Steve and Bucky in that little boy. His hair would have to be cut, there was no way around that now. But it was dark like Bucky’s. Sharon knew from many experiences that those little eyes were blue, icey and pale, though full of love and happiness and curiosity. They weren’t the same as Steve’s which resembled the summer sky better, and she assumed this color belonged to the alpha. She had never really looked into his eyes, had no idea if they really were blue. Her aunt never had any color pictures to show her of James Buchanan Barnes.

But Jamie’s smile was all Steve. The ones she saw in pictures and clips from the war. The ones where he stood next to Bucky, laughing at something the brunette had said. Those smiles were the smiles she saw on Jamie’s face when he greeted people, when he laughed, when he played, and when he told people he loved them.

Sharon hoped she would see that smile again one day.

For now, all she could bring to mind was the gross sobbing Jamie had done in the forest, the pleas he’d had for his daddy to come back.

She had heard about how Jamie’s mental state and emotions were far more developed than any other four year old’s should be, but she never had much experience with it. But knowing what she did, Sharon wondered what Jamie thought about. How much he knew about the current situation, and how he felt about it. Was he mad at Tony? Was he mad at his dads? What was there swimming around in that little head of his?

Sharon wanted to know, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you like it! Let me know what you think in the comments, or shoot me an email like I've said in the past couple chapters! Also, again, I would like to remind you guys that if there is anything you want to see from this, any little scenes, or story lines for this verse, please let me know! I have a running list that I will go through and write once this fic is (finally) done. Thanks again, bye!
> 
> My email: robinplaystrumpet15@gmail.com


	14. Green Hair Ties and Sparkling Combs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon talks some with Jamie his first morning home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this is finally done. Thank you all for the support you have given me recently, and the patience with which you have waited. I hope you like this chapter!

Friday was explaining the information found for Tony. “The Task Force called for a psychiatrist as soon as Barnes was captured. The UN dispatched Dr. Theo Broussard from Geneva within the hour. He was met by this man.”

That was a picture of the “doctor” who had shown up to interview Barnes.

“Did you run a facial recognition yet?”

“What do I look like?” Friday asked.

Yes, Tony had done a good job with this one. “I don’t know, but I’m picturing a red head.”

“You must be thinking of someone else.”

“I must be.”

“The fake doctor is actually Colonel Helmut Zemo. Sokovian intelligence. Zemo ran EKO Skorpion, a Sokovian covert kill squad.”

“So what happened to the real Broussard?” Tony asked.

“He was found dead in a Berlin hotel room. The police also found a wig and facial prosthetics approximately the appearance of one James Buchanan Barnes.”

Tony stopped. “Son of a bitch. Get this to Ross.”

“Yes, boss.”

*

Jamie didn’t wake up for hours. It was late into the afternoon when Sharon heard small feet land on the floor and pad out of the bedroom into the living room behind her. She turned and found Jamie standing there, one little fist rubbing at an icey blue eye.

“Sharon?”

“Hey, Jamie,” Sharon said, smiling softly at the little boy. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m hungry.”

Sharon stood up and walked around the couch to squat next to the little brunette.

“Alright. What do you want to eat?”

Jamie just shrugged, made no noise and looked away from her, eyes scanning over the front room of his apartment. Sharon didn’t know what to do with this.

“Do you want something sweet?” the woman asked. Jamie still just shrugged. Sharon deflated a little bit. This was going to be difficult.

“Why don’t I see what your daddy has in the kitchen and then I’ll make you something? Sound good?” Sharon suggested. Not that it really mattered. She had no idea what Steve had stocked in this apartment. It had been a few days since either of them had been here and Sharon had no idea when the last time the omega had gone shopping was.

Again, Jamie just shrugged, but offered a tiny nod as well. Sharon smiled at the boy.

“Alright.”

*

Breakfast ended up being scrambled eggs and toast, because that was about what Steve had in the fridge. There was some milk that was going to go bad in a few days, five eggs left, and half a loaf of bread. Of course, she also found lettuce, some juice boxes, and lunch meat, but other than that, nothing. Sharon wondered vaguely about that.

Jamie ate his eggs without complaint and nibbled at his toast. Sharon watched on and bit at her own toast every once in awhile, but she wasn’t hungry. She was worried about Jamie. He had just gone through a lot, and yes, he was definitely acting weird, but how was she supposed to combat this? Maybe she could get him to play with her, or watch a movie…

When Jamie was done, he pushed his mostly empty plate back and climbed out of his chair.

“Jamie? Where are you going?” Sharon asked, settling her place of toast on the counter.

“The bathroom.”

“Do you need help?”

“No.”

Sharon hesitated, and when she heard the bathroom door shut, she went to stand outside it. Jamie was four, after all. She knew that Steve had started potty training him when he was around two and a half, and sure, that was a year and a half ago, but she’d known plenty of four year olds in her life that still needed and/or wanted help.

Sharon sighed a little to herself before walking away from the door. She trusted Jamie. If he said he was fine, she would let him do it himself until proven otherwise.

Instead, she went back into the kitchen and started cleaning up breakfast, rinsing out the skillet she’d cooked the eggs in and washing the plates and fork. She set the dishes out on a clean towel on the counter to dry.

She had to do something today… She had to get Jamie out of the apartment and distract him until some of this blew over for awhile. Sharon looked up when she heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door open.

Jamie came in from the hall, his hair a mess of tangles that Sharon was sure would never come out.

“Did you wash your hands?” Jamie halted, then turned without saying a word and backtracked to the bathroom. Sharon smirked, listening to the tap run. Maybe she could be a mom one day… adopt or find a nice mate…

“Hey, Jamie?” Sharon called. The water shut off and there was shuffling before Jamie appeared in the hallway again.

“Yeah?”

“How about we get you a haircut,” Sharon suggested. The moment the words left her mouth, Jamie turned and ran off to the living room. Sharon followed, expecting the boy to be playing with her. He’d done this before. She found him on the couch, his head hidden beneath a throw pillow.

“No!”

“No?” Sharon teased, reaching down and tickling Jamie’s sides. The little boy shrieked with laughter, turning and letting the pillow fall from the couch as he attempted to curl away from Sharon’s fingers.

“No! No haircut!” Jamie yelled, a smiling gracing his face. Sharon nearly sighed over it. She let up, let Jamie sit up and finish his breathy laughter for a second.

“Well, honey, your hair is very messy-”

“Brush it!” Jamie exclaimed.

“I can try but-”

“I like having long hair!” Jamie said.

Sharon sat silently for a moment. Jamie hopped down from the couch and rushed out of the room. For a moment, she didn’t follow, but found she didn’t need to when the brunette came back in with a comb in hand.

“This is my comb! It’s green and sparkly and Daddy brushes my hair with it every morning after breakfast and every night before bed so that my hair doesn’t tangle!” Jamie explained to her, shoving the comb towards the woman.

Sharon smiled before taking it from him. “Okay, I’ll brush your hair. But if I can’t get the tangles out without hurting you, we’ll have to cut them out.”

Jamie frowned, but climbed up on the couch and settled right in her lap as he had done many times before. Carefully, Sharon took hold of a lock of thick, dark brunette hair and tried to pull the comb through the ends.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Sharon worked the sparkling green comb through Jamie’s hair, focussing hard on not pulling it too much. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she also didn’t want to make him get a haircut if he didn’t want one. It would be just a little too strange to see the kid with hair that didn’t fall to his shoulders, that Steve didn’t pet softly, hair that wasn’t pulled back into little ponytails.

It took much too long, and Sharon took a break long enough to turn on the TV and keep Jamie entertained with whatever Spongebob episode was on. It was something about a marching band or whatever. She had never seen it before, but Jamie seemed to like it well enough. The boy sat still as Sharon detangled his hair, not fully finished until the band episode of spongebob was well over.

And finally she was doing a final brush through of his hair, finding no more pulls or catches.

“Alright, kiddo. You’re done,” Sharon smiled down at the top of his head.

“Will you braid it?”

“Okay, will you go find me a hair tie?”

Jamie scrambled from her lap and raced back to the bathroom yet again. And when he came back, he handed her a green hair tie. She was seeing a trend here.

A moment later, his hair was secured in a french braid down the back of his head, resting against his neck.

“Thanks, Sharon!” Jamie jumped up and down for a second next to the couch. “Let’s play a game!”

“Well,” Sharon stood quickly. “We will. We’ll play a game in a little while. But first, why don’t you go get dressed, okay? I want to talk to you about a few things when you’re done.”

Jamie sobered for a second. “What about?”

“We’ll talk after you get dressed, okay? Can you do that for me?” Sharon asked. Jamie looked at her strange for only a moment before surging forward and hugging her, lifting his arms and wrapping them around her hips. The hug was brief before he was letting go and running away to his bedroom. Vaguely, Sharon heard the sound of Jamie’s bedroom door shutting, maybe a little too hard, but she wasn’t worried about that right now.

Jamie’s behavior was strange in the past hour and a half. He woke up and he was subdued and quiet and shut off. He went to the bathroom and came back and he was suddenly ready to play. Now Sharon says she wants to talk to him and he got serious again.

She had to see if the kid would give her any type of answer for this.

Sharon sat back on the couch, letting the TV continue playing in the background. She was glad that she had run across the hall an hour before Jamie woke up and changed. She hadn’t slept all night, just sat on the couch in the front room of the apartment and hugged one of the pillows Steve apparently liked to keep there. She had kept the television off so that Jamie wouldn’t wake up, but something told her that he wouldn’t have no matter what.

“Sharon?”

Suddenly Jamie was standing in front of Sharon again, dressed in dark wash jeans and a white t-shirt that said “four & fierce” in gold lettering. He even had on a matching pair of white and navy blue striped socks. Sharon was pretty impressed with this. Usually, she figured that Steve helped to make sure the clothing matched, but maybe Jamie could do this himself too.

“What do you wanna talk about?” Jamie asked, climbing up onto the couch next to the blonde alpha.

Sharon smiled at him. She shifted on the couch to face the four year old, tucking one leg up under her.

“I wanna know what you know about what your daddy is doing. Can you tell me?” Sharon asked.

Jamie’s eyes flickered away from hers for a split second before coming back. “He’s saving Papa. Tony says he’s doing something bad.”

“Do you think Tony’s right?”

Jamie shrugged. “I dunno. Daddy said that he had to find Papa. He said that people thought Papa did something bad. Tony said that too.”

Sharon nodded and didn’t respond for a moment. But before she could say anything, Jamie was speaking up again.

“What did Papa do?”

Sharon hesitated. She believed Steve. She did, really, she did. But… she could only keep Jamie away from the news and everything else for so long. And everyone else said that Barnes was guilty too. She couldn’t lie to him either, nor would she turn this child against his fathers.

“Nothing, sweetie. Your papa hasn’t done anything wrong.” Sharon reached out and brushed back a few strands of hair that had fallen out of his braid. “You daddy went to make sure he’s safe. They’re doing the right thing.”

“Then why does Uncle Tony think they did something wrong?” Jamie asked. There was something in his eyes, something that turned ice blue dark and unsettling. Sharon hated to see that look in a little boy’s eyes. He should be happy and bouncing and energetic, and to be fair, he was. Jamie did act like a typical little boy. He liked to play in the park. He liked to draw with crayons and markers, and had painted sometimes. He danced around with Steve and his pseudo aunts and uncles and played games and laughed. And that was fine. That’s normal. But there were other times where Jamie acted so much older than he was.

“Because somebody wanted him to think that. Someone wanted your papa to be in trouble for something.”

“Oh,” Jamie said. Suddenly he was perking up. “Well, then Daddy just has to tell Uncle Tony the truth, and it’ll be okay. Then Papa can come home and live with us.”

Jamie jumped off the couch and turned an eager smile towards Sharon. “Can we play now?”

“Uh,” Sharon stuttered. “Well, Jamie-”

“We’ll play hide and seek!” Jamie exclaimed. “I’ll hide first, and you gotta find me!”

Then the brunette was rushing off somewhere. Sharon was just a bit too stunned to pay attention to listen for what door was opening or closing quietly or where socked feet padded across wood floors.

What just happened.

*

Steve really shouldn’t have done it, but he did. He felt the phone buzz in his pocket, and without really thinking, he pulled it out to check it.

On the screen was a text from Sharon.

Your son is confusing me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! Also, I'll just leave this here, if there is anything from this verse that you would like to see, let me know! You can leave a comment with your prompt or email it to me at the email on my profile or even message me over on Tumblr (it's the same user name). Thanks!


	15. Timber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon watches over Jamie for a few days before they are sent for from Wakanda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S GOIN' DOWN FOR REAL
> 
> Legit though... fuck...
> 
> Just... fuck... I hope you like this

“Sharon!”

Sharon lifted her head up off the table. This no sleep thing was starting to catch up with her. She could do a lot under fire, but already it had been three days by now. She had slept for about twelve hours total in that time, mostly comprised of short naps that she caught during the day, or when she managed to pass out for a little bit at night. Not once had she gotten a full night’s sleep, and it was taking her down.

“Yeah, Jamie?” she asked, trying not to seem too tired. Her coffee wasn’t ready, and yet Jamie had been up for awhile, and was already dressed.Without her noticing, he had climbed up on a box in his closet and pulled down a dress and put it on. Sharon hadn’t even known the kid owned a dress. But it was adorable, she had to admit. It was black with huge rainbow polka dots all over it, with a strip of green ribbon tied around his waist.

He pulled it off really well, especially after he’d asked Sharon to put his hair in pigtails.

“Let’s have a dance party!”

And since she didn’t have the heart or the energy to tell him no, she pulled out her phone and started looking for a good playlist of songs.

Jamie climbed up on the chair next to her and asked politely if he could see her phone and pick out the song.

Honestly, Sharon wasn’t sure how much experience the kid had with smartphones, but she figured, hey, the kid has spent most of his four years of life around Tony Freaking Stark. He was probably capable enough to pick a song.

As he did, Sharon decided to finally ask the question she’d been dying to get an answer to.

“Jamie, why do you have a dress?”

The brunette didn’t even look up at her as he replied, “Because I made a friend at the park. She was wearing a dress like this. I liked it. Daddy got it for me at the store.”

Apparently, this kid did not care for the gender binary.

“It’s okay that you like it, but-”

“Daddy says that I should never be afraid to like the things I like. He said that just because dresses are worn by girls, that doesn’t mean that I can’t wear them too,” Jamie cut her off smoothly.

“Well, your daddy is very smart,” Sharon smiled at him. He continued to scroll down her long list of songs. Could he even read the titles? Probably not…

But then he must have recognized something, because he tapped it excitedly and hopped from the chair, waiting for the music to start playing.

_It’s going down_  
_I’m yelling timber_  
_You better move_  
_You better dance_  
_Let’s make a night you won’t remember_  
_I’ll be the one you won’t forget_

Sharon cringed inwardly, knowing that some of the lyrics to this song were sexually suggestive, but also knowing that to a four year old, he probably didn’t know the difference. Though the fact that Steve had allowed his child to listen to, and subsequently like, this song was a little strange. He had to have really listened to those lyrics at some point-

But then again… Maybe not… Steve wasn’t stupid, but when it came to some twenty first century stuff, he was just straight up clueless. The ease of caring for a baby, with vaccines and everything had shocked him. She knew he and his mate had tried for kids before back in the thirties, but raising a child back then had been drastically different…

Though he had taken it all in stride, the same way he did with almost everything nowadays.

Sharon came out of her thoughts to see Jamie just bouncing all over the place, seeming to feed off the energy of the music. And sure, maybe she was tired, but that kid was adorable and she couldn’t deny him anything. So when he looked back at her and damn near shouted for her to dance with him (happily, to be clear) she smiled at him and stood, reaching her hands out to him and letting him jerk her around in strange, half dance moves.

*

It was a few hours later, in the middle of watching Moana, when Sharon’s phone rang from the table in the kitchen. She disentangled herself from the blanket she had been sharing with Jamie to run and get it.

“Hello?” she answered, swiping at the green checkmark on the screen.

“Sharon,” the voice on the other end of the line breathed. The blonde woman sighed in relief, knowing Steve’s voice instantly.

“Hey-”

“I can’t talk long. Just know that there is a plan to get you and Jamie to us,” Steve said quickly.

Sharon hesitated. “Okay?”

“Tomorrow, a man and woman will come to the apartment. Act as if you know them, like they’re old friends. They will be bringing you out of the country.”

“Where?”

“I can’t tell you. They’ll fill you in on the way here,” Steve said.

Sharon nodded to herself, humming an agreement into the speaker. There was silence for only a second before, “Do you want to talk to Jamie?”

“Please.” Sharon could hear the desperation in his voice as the man nearly pleaded his response.

“Alright, I’ll get him. Just hold on a second,” Sharon assured quickly, nearly flying back out to the living room and hitting pause on the movie, Jamie looking at her strangely. “Hey, Jamie. Your dad wants to talk to you.”

Jamie’s blue eyes went wide, something that could only really be described as a squeal letting loose from his mouth. He grabbed excitedly at the cell phone, putting it to his ear when Sharon handed it over.

“Daddy!”

Sharon smiled happily to herself, settling herself back on the couch.

Jamie listened quietly as Steve spoke.

“Hey, baby,” Steve said. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“Sweetie, we can’t talk long, but I’ll see you soon, okay?” Steve admitted softly, sounding almost like he might cry.

“Are you coming home?” Jamie asked. His little eyebrows had knitted together, a little crease appearing between them as his icy blue eyes looked just a touch too sad.

Steve swallowed audibly. “Uh, no baby. But you’re coming to me, alright? Some people are going to come for you and Aunt Sharon tomorrow, okay? Just be nice to them, and everything. Be good. They’ll tell you more.” His voice was wavering, shaky and giving away a lot more emotion than he had wanted it to. Steve hoped silently that he wasn’t affecting Jamie.

But the brunette only nodded, his pigtails swinging a little bit. “Okay, Daddy.”

Steve huffed a teary laugh. “You’re so brave, my little miracle. Jamie baby, I love you,” the man promised.

“I love you too, Daddy,” Jamie said, his little hands gripping the phone tightly.

“Can you give the phone back to Sharon?”

Without another word, Jamie handed the cell back to Sharon before he dropped himself to the floor and walked away out of the room. Sharon watched him for a moment, putting the phone back to her ear.

“Steve? You there?”

“Yeah. Now listen, you have about twenty four hours before they arrive. Make sure that you are both ready to leave. You are free to go back to the states once Jamie is here, but you don’t have to. You can stay here too,” Steve explained quickly. Sharon couldn’t tell he may have been crying a moment ago.

“Okay. We’ll be ready.”

Steve sighed as if the weight of the world was settled on his shoulders. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Sharon acknowledged. “Anything else?”

“Just stay safe,” Steve have laughed. “Goodbye, Sharon.”

“Bye, Steve.”

*

Putting Jamie to bed the night was an ordeal. Mostly because Sharon had chosen to get the boy to help her back clothes and whatever else for him. She was able to keep the packed to two medium sized bags, full of clothes and specific toys and decorations from the top of the dresser. Jamie had pulled down the black and white picture of his dads first, then reached over for other little things that Sharon had assumed he’d gotten from the other Avengers. Jamie’s sparkly green comb went in the bag, and so did quite a few hair ties.

Jamie had seemed to remember something just as Sharon was tucking him in, suddenly demanding something about a lovey.

“What’s a lovey?” Sharon asked him patiently.

“My bear! He’s brown and wears a red and blue suit! There’s a black mask over his eyes!” Jamie explained unhappily.

“Well,” Sharon said. She hadn’t seen anything like that around the apartment, and it hadn’t been with him when they’d found Jamie in the forest. “Where did you last see him?”

“In the forest!” Jamie cried. He fell helplessly onto his little bed, arms splayed out.

Sharon wanted to hit her head on a wall. Of course the toy had been lost in the forest before they had found him. But the other agents had been remarkably good at following the little four year old, despite the strange way he was able to cover miles in so short a period of time.

But she sighed anyway, kneeling down and looking at Jamie, his hair loose after she’d taken it from his pigtails. He had put himself in a pair of Wonder Woman pajamas, which Sharon had chuckled at just a little bit. She found it funny how there were still comic books of fictional superheroes when their world had real ones.

“Jamie, I think your lovey is lost. You probably lost it in the woods before I found you.”

The boy took in a deep breath, one that Sharon was sure was going to be used to scream or cry or something, but then he sighed and sat up and looked her in the eye. And once again, Sharon remembered that this kid was different, that there was something in that kid’s head that made him so much more mature at times.

“Do you think there’s another one somewhere?” Jamie asked, and Sharon frowned sadly at the tears welling in his eyes.

“Maybe. We’ll look online sometime, okay?” Sharon assured, reaching and pulling Jamie into a hug. “Now, it’s late. You need to go to sleep, so that in the morning, we’re all ready to go when the people come to get us.”

Sharon pulled out of the hug to see Jamie nod before he laid back down, his head cushioned on his Avengers pillow. The blonde woman pulled his Captain America and Iron Man blanket up over him, tucking it up to his chin.

“Goodnight, Jamie. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night, Aunt Sharon.”

*

There was a knock at the door just around noon. She and Jamie had been sitting quietly on the couch, their bags on the floor by Sharon’s feet. Jamie’s blanket and pillow bad also been stripped off his bed to be brought along. It didn’t take up too much room in the bags, and Sharon was sure the boy would want them on the way to… wherever they were going?

Sharon was able to sleep for about three hours before Jamie had woken up the next morning, a bit too early to really justify being up at all. But there wasn’t much else to do. Once Jamie was up, Sharon had been sure she wouldn’t be able to get him to go back to sleep.

So instead, they just got ready. Jamie took a bath, something that Sharon did help him with, and then he dressed himself, ending up in a pair of dark, blue jean overalls and a white t-shirt with pawprints all over it. His socks weren’t matching, but honestly, it was six o’clock in the morning and she couldn’t care any less, but at least he had on the same shoes.

Sharon did her best to kill time, making them breakfast, then cleaning up, checking the apartment for anything that Steve may want from it. He hadn’t said whether or not there was anything, other than Jamie, but she was pretty positive that if they did come back here one day, their stuff will be gone.

The alpha woman had just checked the clock when she heard a knock at the door. Jamie was sitting on the couch, sort of staring at the wall as the television had been turned off already. Sharon hurried for the door, trying to act casual as she opened it.

Outside in the hallway was a man and a woman, both fairly tall and well dressed with pleasant smiles on their faces.

“Sharon,” the woman greeted happily. “It is so good to see you. It has been much too long.”

Sharon smiled back at her, catching on. “Of course. Come in,” she said good naturedly, stepping aside and gesturing into the apartment.

“Thank you,” the woman said, stepping through the door with the man, their arms linked together.

Jamie appeared before them, his hands clasped shyly behind his back.

“Oh, and you must be Jamie,” the man said, stooping down and offering his hand to the small child. “Put ‘er there, sport!”

Jamie hesitantly reached out and shook the hand.

“Well you don’t remember us, do you?” the man asked. Jamie shook his head. “I’m Michael and this is my wife Amelia. We’re friends of your Aunt Sharon.”

“Hi,” Jamie greeted, his voice small.

Sharon looked away from the child to the man and woman. They were both tall, the woman had maybe an inch of height on the man, and they both had rich, dark skin. The woman’s face was nice, her smile rather inviting, her hair a tamed sort of mess of tight ringlets. The man had a thin face, sort of long, with no hair to be seen.

“Well,” Amelia said, turning to face Sharon. “Are we all ready to go?”

Sharon nodded, smiling. “Yes, just let us grab our bags. Jamie, honey, will you take your backpack?”

Jamie nodded and rushed back into the living room to get it.

“He’s a little shy,” she said, following the boy.

They took the bags, Sharon with hers and one of Jamie’s in hand as they came back to the front door to and Michael and Amelia.

“Alright,” Michael said. “Let’s go.”

*

The car ride hadn’t been very long, took them out of the state, but not much further, before they got out at an airport. They boarded a private jet, and settled in.

The flight lasted nineteen hours. Nineteen… hours…

Sharon hoped she never flew on a plane again.

Though what she did learn in that time was that Michael’s name was actually Masamba and Amelia’s name was really Chichi. They were servants of the king in Wakanda, where T’Challa had taken Steve and Bucky after a fall out with Tony. And apparently, “fall out” was a terrible term for what happened. It was revealed that Bucky had killed Tony’s mother and father, and Tony had been understandably upset. There had been a massive fight where Bucky lost his metal arm, Steve left his shield behind, and Tony had nearly been killed.

After hearing the whole story, Sharon had been rather relieved to know that Jamie had fallen asleep and hadn’t heard any of it.

*

The jet landed, Masamba and Chichi leading Sharon and Jamie off the aircraft. Sharon carried Jamie on her hip, her bag in her other hand. Chichi had been nice enough to carry Jamie’s for him.

And then, suddenly Jamie was struggling to get out of Sharon’s grip. He whined high and upset as Sharon set him down.

The little brunette took off running, screaming, “Daddy! Pappa!”

Sharon’s eyes settled on two men standing together by the building they’d landed next to. Both looked a little worse for wear, but as if they’d had a few days rest, which Sharon thought was pretty good for what she’d just heard. Steve stooped down and held his arms out wide, catching Jamie and lifting him, spinning him into the air.

Jamie’s laugh was high and near painful to listen to, but it was beautiful. It was carefree and happy, but then Jamie was crying.

“Daddy!”

And from back here, Sharon couldn’t hear anything that Steve whispered to his baby, none of the sweet nothings, the calming tone of his voice.

But it made her smile nonetheless, having heard them before.

And maybe as she got closer, she pretended that she couldn’t see Steve crying over his baby, or Jamie focussing his attention on Bucky and demanding to be held and crying on him too. She definitely didn’t notice Bucky crying either.

*

Jamie was crying.

He was sobbing and pleading and questioning, and damn near throwing a tantrum.

“Jamie, sweetheart, I’m sorry-”

“No!”

“Listen to me, darling-”

“Pappa!”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone, honey. Do you understand?”

Jamie quieted just slightly for a moment. His ice blue eyes were rimmed in angry get, huge alligator tears streaming down his cheeks that were round and plump and flushed bright red.

“Honey, Pappa has done bad stuff before, and I don’t want to let anyone make me do it again. I have to go to sleep for awhile, okay?” Bucky explained, his one arm wrapped around the four year old sitting on his thigh.

“But I want you here…” Jamie mumbled, a far cry from his demeanor just a moment ago, now quiet and grumbling.

“I know, baby,” Bucky conceded, pressing a kiss to the top of Jamie’s head. “And I want to be here with you too, but it’ll be better this way. It won’t be long.”

Jamie didn’t say anything, then,” Promise?” he asked, looking up at his father that he looked so much like.

Bucky smiled sadly, stroking back some dark brunette hair. “Yeah, baby. Promise.”

Jamie nodded, looking down again.

Bucky stood from the medical table, supporting Jamie’s weight in his arm before handing him off to Sharon. The blonde took him and left the room, offering Bucky a small, sad smile.

Jamie’s fist clutched into the alpha’s shirt, his tears soaking into her shoulder.

Sharon pretended she didn’t notice that she was crying too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!
> 
> On a different note, I really hope you guys liked this. If you caught any grammar mistakes, please point them out so that I can go in and fix them. I'm gonna be honest, I have not read through this yet. I have my friend Sebastian here, and I was way too excited to get this damn thing posted.
> 
> Also, there will only be one more chapter! The next one will be the last, no matter what.
> 
> That being said, if you have any prompts that you want to give me for this verse, I would love to hear them! Please leave them in a comment, or real free to email me at the email address on my profile page, or even send me a message or an ask over on Tumblr. I want to do one shots for this verse because I love it, I love my Jamie baby, and much more. So, let me know, guys.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked this and let me know what you thought! :)


	16. Epilogue - What Can We Do But Try (Together)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years in the future, Steve has everything he could have ever asked for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, guys. It's the last chapter!
> 
> Honestly, when I started writing this story nearly a year and a half ago, I did not expect the conclusion to take this long. But here we are. My document on my Google Drive says this story is now 32,158 words long, which isn't quite correct because it's counting some other stuff in there as well, but god damn. This is crazy.
> 
> I hope you guys have enjoyed this story. It has been a wonderful ride, and I'm super happy with how it turned out, to be honest. I will say something about it in the end notes as well, but if there are any scenes within this verse that didn't make it into the chapters that you want to see, please please please tell me about them. I plan on doing oneshots for this verse, because I don't want to forget about my babies or this family or anything.
> 
> Thanks for sticking it out with me, and I hope you enjoy this very last chapter!

Some days, Steve did a lot of thinking. He hadn’t been sleeping well for months, so the middle of the night was the perfect time to do it, after all. The dark was quiet and peaceful, soft on his bed with his alpha by his side.

It was funny at times, when Steve thought about it. It had been so long since he’d felt this kind of peace. The war had taken that from him, and the ice held nothing but darkness. The twenty first century was go go go all the time, and as a superhero and a national figure, there wasn’t much time for rest and quiet. Not even with his son.

Jamie. Oh Jamie was big now, so big. They’d just been to the doctor the other day for his check up and he was… oh what had the doctor said… four foot three? That sounded right. It was a far cry from when he’d been born, so tiny, weighed only seven pounds on the dot and nineteen inches long. Of course, he still threw himself into Steve’s arms, still curled up in his lap like he was small.

Like nothing at all had changed.

Except that it had.

Because it had taken some time, but life was good. His family was safe, he and Tony and Bucky had worked out their problems. They were no longer fugitives or criminals. Jamie was a big brother. They lived in Brooklyn, a beautiful, four bedroom, two bath penthouse that was plenty big enough for the four, soon to be five of them.

Steve brought his hand up to rest on his belly. He was pregnant again, his little baby ready to arrive any day now. They were all waiting, Steve rather impatiently.

There were people coming by the penthouse just about every day, Natasha and Sharon two of the most frequent visitors. Not that he really needed it… or maybe he did. He had an eight year old and a two year old running around here, and he wasn’t able to do a whole lot at this point. And Bucky was being pulled in so many different directions, Steve was surprised at how well he was handling it.

Four years ago though… oh boy, that had been a trip. Once Bucky had gone into cryo, Steve and T’Challa worked over time to find anything that related to how they could help him. They searched Hydra documents and folders, went on missions to places all over the world, got their hands on anything that even mentioned brainwashing or mental reprogramming or… anything, really.

Steve knew that Jamie needed his fathers, both of them, and the best way to do that was to… “fix” Bucky, for lack of a better term. And thankfully, it didn’t take too long. They eventually found what they were looking for, able to read it again and again and again before they woke Bucky up and told him what they planned to do.

It was a long, involved process that Steve hated to think about, because it had caused Bucky more than just a little bit of pain.

Steve shifted uncomfortably, opening his eyes to the dark room, cool early morning light streaming through the gap in their bedroom curtains. They had been at Avengers Tower for a few nights now. As he moved, he heard Bucky take in a deep breath and sigh, his eyes fluttering open.

“Hey,” Bucky greeted, his voice groggy and strained from sleep.

“Hi,” Steve breathed, nearly mouthing it instead of speaking.

Bucky shifted further onto his side, his hand coming up to brush back a few pieces of Steve’s blonde hair. “Something wrong?”

Steve smiled at his mate gently. “No, just can’t sleep. You know that.”

Bucky smiled too. “I know, but I have to ask, doll. That little baby of ours might decide to make an appearance today.”

Steve huffed a laugh. “Oh I know. I am so ready to not be pregnant anymore. I want my baby and I want him now.”

Bucky leaned up on his arm to catch sight of the alarm clock on Steve’s side of the bed. It must not be too early since he groaned a bit as he settled again. “The munchkins will be up soon,” he mumbled, leaning forward and pressing his mouth to Steve’s.

Then suddenly there was a thump and the sound of running feet, and suddenly the bedroom door flew open.

“Daddy! Papa!” Jamie yelled as he ran into the room, Sarah close on his heels. The brunette stopped by the edge of the bed to boost the little blonde girl up onto it before climbing up himself. The two fumbled over the sheets and messy blankets to get to their dads, careful not to climb over Steve. Bucky “oof”ed as the little body of Sarah landed on his chest, pushing him down into the mattress again.

“Papa!” the little girl cried happily.

Steve smiled, watching Bucky wrap his arms around her, snuggling their little girl with a ridiculous smile on his face. Sarah nearly screeched and laughed when Bucky’s fingers flew over his sides, tickling her.

There was nothing quiet about his baby girl. She was two now, with long blonde hair and sky blue eyes, both of which she got from her grandmother. Sarah was everything that girls were said to be: sugar and spice and everything nice. She was so sweet, but she got her brother into the worst sort of trouble, which Steve found highly amusing given their age difference.

Jamie settled himself gently into Steve’s side, one arm thrown over Steve’s rounded belly almost protectively. Steve turned a sweet smile on his boy, reaching and brushing back some of his dark brunette locks. They weren’t as long as they used to be. When he started first grade, they’d been informed that the school had a policy on hairstyles, specifically for boys, and that Jamie’s hair was much too long. Steve had nearly thrown a fit, and so had Jamie. But inevitably, Jamie’s hair bad been cut, and Steve had made the best of it and taken Jamie out for icecream for being so good.

“Daddy?” Jamie asked, turning his face up to his father.

“Yes, baby?” Steve replied, still smiling. He could never get enough of his son. Could never spend enough time with him or look at him long enough. At eight years old, Jamie looked just like Bucky had back in 1925. It was startling.

“When is the baby getting here?”

“Soon, baby,” Steve laughed. “Very soon. You’re eager to have a baby brother, aren’t you?”

Jamie gave him a wide, toothy grin that was missing two of his baby teeth. “Yeah!”

“Me too! Me too!” Sarah yelled, pulling out of Bucky’s grip and nearly throwing herself across Steve’s chest, pushing her face into Jamie’s neck.

“Sarah! Get off!” Jamie argued.

And, yup, there it was. The bickering. Which meant the day had officially started.

“Alright, you two, that’s enough,” Bucky said, sitting up and lifting the two year old onto his shoulder. “I think it’s breakfast time.”

“Pancakes! Pancakes!” Sarah yelled.

Bucky chuckled as he stood and walked around the bed to Steve’s side. Jamie stood too, hopping off the mattress and rushing out the bedroom door.

Steve rolled a little as Bucky stooped and kissed him, asking, “What do you and baby want for breakfast, gorgeous?”

Steve smiled into the brief peck, humming a little. “Whatever the princess wants. You know this baby’s not picky.”

Bucky straightened again, adjusting his grip on Sarah. “Pancakes it is!”

“Have Vision help you!” Steve called after his mate as Bucky left the room, Sarah waving at him over his shoulder. He heard a noncommittal sound in response.

And this was his life. He and Bucky and the kids had been staying in Avengers tower, now technically SHIELD headquarters, for nearly two weeks, knowing it would be better in the long run. It was honestly just so much easier. People came and went at all hours of the night, but Tony knew what he was doing when he’d designed the rooms on the upper levels. They were mostly sound proof with speakers and microphones built into the ceilings. Friday was everywhere, just as Jarvis had been, and she kept everyone alert as to the goings on within the living quarters.

But this way, when Steve couldn’t help with Jamie and Sarah, Bucky wasn’t left to fend for himself. He had help. Natasha was almost always around, unless she was on a mission, and was always happy to handle the kids, as were Bruce and Tony and Pepper, who seemed to be around a little less. Clint dropped by every once in awhile, usually bringing his kids along for a play date.

But this way, when the baby was born, there were still more hands to help with that too.

Because Steve had never been on his own as a father. Even before they’d known Bucky was still alive, Steve hadn’t ever been alone, thanks to his friends. When he’d gone days without sleep, and Jamie just wouldn’t settle down, there was always a set of hands ready to take him. So this just seemed right, to do this for his other kids as well. Because sure, between the two of them, Steve was sure he and Bucky could figure out newborns, but when he’d been pregnant with Sarah, he just hadn’t wanted to find out. It was nerve wracking, every time.

Steve huffed a sigh, hoisting himself into a sitting position. God, he was ready to have this baby. He couldn’t move around very well, he was tired all the time, and he wasn’t loving the way his feet and ankles were swelling up on the bad days. He couldn’t walk normally, and Sarah didn’t fit comfortably on his hip anymore.

At least people weren’t treating him like he was glass, the way they had eight years ago.

He stood from the bed, walking over to the desk chair where he’d tossed his sweatshirt last night, pulling it on over his head. Sure, the tower had fantastic heating and A/C, but that didn’t mean Steve didn’t like to wear warm clothes. It was mid January after all.

Steve shuffled slowly out of the room, trying his damn hardest not to waddle, because he hated it. It made him feel awkward and he hated how people thought it was cute. So he took it slowly, taking what were probably too deliberate steps to seem natural, but honestly, his back was killing him. There was this dull ache down in his lower back, but he didn’t want to say anything about it yet. He’d wait. If he was going into labor, he’d know. Two kids, three pregnancies, he’d know if he was going into labor.

*

Bucky left with Jamie to take him to school at eight o’clock. Steve never could get over how cute the kid was in his uniform. The school required elementary students to wear navy blue bottoms (pants or shorts for boys) and a white polo, with an optional dark red sweater. It was cute, if not a little annoying, especially when children are younger. Pre-K and Kindergarten students are not required to wear uniforms, though Jamie missed out on that.

By the time Bucky arrived home again, it was just after 8:40, and it had been hours since they’d woken up, and honestly, Steve was no longer sure he was just aching.

Maybe the baby was coming…

But then, he hadn’t felt his water break, so he was fine for the moment.

Steve had finally gotten Sarah to work with him and got dressed, with the help of Natasha, of course. Nat and Wanda loved to dress her up like a doll, though sometimes the girl just liked to roll around in the mud with her older brother. (That had happened a few times, and everytime, Steve couldn’t really find it in him to be mad that the two had ruined another set of clothes.)

Today the girl had ended up in a simple gray dress with long sleeves and white leggings. The dress itself had a cute cat face on the front. It was adorable, Steve would admit that, even if there was a part of him that was still stuck back in the forties thinking something along the lines of “what are these clothes?”

Steve winced as he dropped onto the couch, Sarah climbing up beside him to watch whatever was on the Disney Jr channel at the moment. She’d really taken a liking to Paw Patrol recently.

“Hey, doll,” Bucky greeted, joining them from the elevator. “You okay?”

Steve looked up at him, gave him a sort of tight smile. “Yeah, just sore.”

Bucky looked at him strange. “Okay. Tell me if anything changes.”

The omega nodded, turning to face the television, then watching his daughter as she pressed buttons on the remote. He chuckled, reaching over and plucking the remote from her hands.

“No!” Sarah whined.

Steve openly laughed. “Sweetheart, Daddy’s going to find you something to watch.”

Then the girl pouted until she noticed that Steve had settled on Paw Patrol, and Steve resigned himself to watching the team of dogs save people with their improbable tech that apparently responds to a bark and a command. Steve wasn’t sure how that worked, or even if that would work, but Tony had said once he could probably make it happen. Steve had been slightly frightened last month that the alpha would attempt to actually build one of the pup mobiles for his daughter’s birthday. (Thankfully, he hadn’t, but he had built her a tiny motorized car that only went like… three miles an hour.)

Steve had gotten up about thirty minutes later, unable to sit any longer. He’d noticed that with this pregnancy. He couldn’t sit for long periods of time, or he got much too uncomfortable and had to get up and move, however difficult it may be now.

But once he did, and was in his and Bucky’s bedroom, something popped suddenly, the sensation in Steve’s belly, then his lounge pants were warm and wet.

“Oh no,” Steve muttered to himself.

“Sir?” Friday asked from the ceiling. Steve’s back flared in pain.

Steve groaned a little, leaning and steadying himself on the headboard of his bed. “The baby’s coming,”

“Mr. Barnes and Mr. Stark are on their way up.”

Sometimes Steve was still impressed with how attuned to the inhabitants of this building Friday was. But that wasn’t the point at the moment. He moved to throw on a new pair of underwear and pants, as if it really mattered because here in a little while he was going to be without them anyway.

Bucky nearly crashed into the room. “Steve?!”

Steve turned and focussed on his mate. He joined him on the other side of the room as fast as he could. “Bucky, I’m fine at the moment.”

Bucky just stared at him in shock. “What do you want me to do?”

“Get me to the hospital. Someone needs to call Dr. Craycraft, tell her we’re on our way,” Steve said, trying to pull his sneakers on as best he could, one hand on the back of the desk chair. “Oh, and someone will have to either get Jamie or inform the school that someone else will be picking him up later.”

“Alright, doll,” Bucky assured, letting Steve grasp his arm.

“Daddy!” Sarah appeared in their doorway then, his long ponytail swinging from the back of her head. “Come watch with me!”

“Oh sorry, baby, but daddy can’t right now,” Steve said. He winced at the ache in his back. It wasn’t another contraction, but it wasn’t pleasant. “The baby’s coming and Daddy has to go to the doctor.”

Bucky crouched down in front of her. “We have to go now. Go find Aunt Natasha?”

Sarah nodded happily before running off.

“Sir, Mr. Stark is calling Jamie’s school. Ms. Romanoff has been informed of the situation.” Seriously, Friday was freaky good at her job, which Steve knew said a lot about her creator.

Steve smiled and thanked Friday before Bucky helped him out of the room and towards the elevator.

*

As it turned out, the hospital, while waiting for Dr. Craycraft to arrive, told Steve he was not in enough labor and should go home and come back later. Steve nearly yelled at them all. He was about to give birth to his third child, he’d be the one to tell them if he was in enough god damn labor. Thankfully, just as the people in charge were about to let him go, Dr. Craycraft had arrived, taken a single look at him, asked one question, and demanded Steve be put in a room. When she’d examined him closer, she concluded that this baby was coming now, whether they all liked it, or not.

Steve was given an epidural as fast as they could manage it, not wanting to wait too much longer, and about a fifteen minutes later, Steve was pretty out of it. He could feel everything, sure, or maybe he could, but he soo didn’t care. If he were asked, he would say it was an interesting experience. If Bucky was asked, he would call it terrifying. Steve was screaming and groaning, and the doctor was giving them orders, and it just… wasn’t a fun time.

*

An hour later, a screaming baby boy joined the world. He was tiny, the size of a four week premature baby, red in the face and slimy. But he was precious and Steve and Bucky both cried when they held him for the first time, newly clean and yet to be wrapped up or weighed or anything.

*

The next day was busy, even for Steve who literally spent most of his time sitting in bed. People came and went, cooing over Steve and the baby, congratulating him and Bucky on a healthy baby boy.

Tony had been the first to stop by, nearly as soon as visiting hours started. He’d knocked on the door and opened it, coming in quietly to see Steve already up, holding a tiny bottle of formula for his baby to suck on.

“Hey, Cap,” Tony had whispered.

Steve smiled up at him tiredly. He hadn’t slept all the much, and if he was honest, he was pretty sure the epidural was still working on its last legs. “Hey.”

“How’s the new little monster?” Tony asked a little louder, coming a little closer and letting the door fall shut behind him.

Steve grinned. “He’s good. So far completely healthy, weighs five pounds, seven ounces, eighteen inches long-”

“And he’s got your eyes,” Tony said, watching as the tiny baby opened his eyes and glanced blearily up at the two adults before shutting them again. “He’s so small compared to the way Jamie and Sarah were.”

“Yeah,” Steve replied, almost dreamily. Good lord, he was still a little out of it. “He is real small. Not like his sister. She was a big baby.”

Tony chuckled gently, reaching out and brushing his finger along the baby’s hand. Then tiny fingers wrapped around the digit, holding on tightly. “He’s strong though.”

“Do you want to hold him?” Steve asked.

Tony hesitated then shook his head. “Maybe when he’s done eating-”

“Nah,” Steve said, shifting the baby. “You’ve fed both my other ones, I trust you to feed this one too.”

Tony found himself with no other choice than to take the baby. Oh god, he was light. Tony had picked up cats that weighed more than this tiny thing did. He chuckled about it to himself just a bit, cradling the baby close to his chest as he began to squirm without his bottle.

“Shh, sweetheart,” Tony cooed. “Hold on just a second and you can have it back.”

Steve laughed at him as he passed him the bottle.

The baby latched onto it happily when it was offered, quieting down again. He seemed like a chill little thing, as long as he had his bottle, but then again, three minutes of experience says nothing.

“What’s his name, Steve?” Tony asked absentmindedly, watching the baby’s eyelids flutter.

“Cameron.”

*

Natasha, Wanda, and Vision didn’t stop by with Jamie and Sarah until the older was out of school. He may have a new baby brother, but school was still important. Or, that’s what Bucky had said. If Steve had gotten his way, Jamie wouldn’t have gone to school today at all, and he would have spent the whole day here with him and his father and siblings.

“Daddy?” Jamie said quietly, poking his head in first.

Bucky stood quickly and walked to the door. “Why don’t you let everyone in, kiddo, huh?” Bucky pulled the door the rest of the way open, revealing the three adults with him and his sister.

Then the two kids were rushing into the room and stopping immediately at Steve’s bedside. Sarah reached up at the bed, waiting about .2 seconds before demanding unhappily to see.

“Can she come up, Daddy?” Jamie asked. Steve nodded and watched as his oldest hoisted his now middle child up onto the hospital bed. Sarah gained her balance on the mattress and shuffled forward, sitting carefully on her father’s legs and looking down at the bundle in Steve’s arms.

“Daddy! It’s a baby!” Sarah exclaimed. Jamie and Bucky rushed to shush her and remind her to be quiet before the baby cried. But he didn’t react much at all, just opened his eyes to look angrily up at his sister. Steve knew that Camry couldn’t really made an angry face yet, but this one definitely came close.

“Princess, you gotta remember that we have to be quiet around the baby, don’t we?” Steve reminded gently once his mate and child quieted again. He heard a few chuckles from his friends who’d come in and closed the door.

Sarah’s hands flew up over her mouth. She nodded furiously.

“Okay, good girl,” Steve smiled at her.

No one said anything for a moment as the two kids looked over their new baby brother, taking him in.

“He’s tinier than I expected,” Jamie said suddenly.

Steve laughed. “Yeah, he is, isn’t he? He’s a lot smaller than Sarah was.”

Jamie nodded.

“Do you guys remember the secret I told you?” Steve asked his kids then. Jamie and Sarah smiled happily and nodded. “And you didn’t tell anyone, did you?” They shook their heads no.

“What’s the secret?” Vision asked.

“His name,” Steve said simply, looking up to meet his friends’ gazes. “Do you two want to tell them?”

“Camry Melody!” Jamie and Sarah chorused together.

Steve looked down at his Cameron Melody Rogers-Barnes, Camry for short. His eyes were open, interested in the amount of people that were occupying the room. They were sky blue, and his wisps of hair were light and almost unnoticeable. His cheeks and little button nose were red, and his fingers were small and wrapped up in his sister’s hand.

Steve had gotten everything he’d wanted. He’d gotten his mate, he’d gotten a family, a quickly growing boy named Jamie, a terrible two named Sarah, and a newborn baby boy named Camry. He was happy, and Steve knew they could get through this, and anything else that was thrown their way. Because eight years ago, he’d had his newly makeshift family to help him when he needed them, but now they were experienced. They were together and close-knit, happy and strong.

Steve wasn’t alone, and he knew he never would be again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story! If you found any grammar mistakes, please feel free to point them out so I can go in and correct them. I believe I caught all or most of them, but I say this just to be sure. You never know what you may have missed.
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you thought about this chapter, and this story as a whole as I love to hear from you guys. And beyond that, like I said in my beginning notes, if there are scenes you want to see, maybe for the kids years in the future, or just the kids doing things together, or random days from the very beginning, please tell me about them. I would like to write oneshots and post them, but I also want to know what you guys want to see. You can leave them in a comment here, or you can email your prompts to me at robinplaystrumpet15@gmail.com, or you can send them in an ask or a private message over on Tumblr where my username is (you guessed it) robinplaystrumpet15.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you liked it!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Look out for the next chapter. It should be up soon :)
> 
> As always, if you see any mistakes, let me know so that I may go in and fix them. Let me know what you think! Thanks!


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